"BUT DO YOU LOVE ME?"

Fiddler on the Roof was a highly successful 1964 Broadway production and in 1971 came out as a very popular award-winning musical-comedy drama film.  I thought it was a great film.  My title comes from a song in the play sung by Tevye, the Jewish milkman husband of Golde and the father of five girls who lived in a poor farming village of Ukraine at the beginning of the last century. 

Tevye sings this song as he considers his 25 year marriage to his arranged-marriage wife, and asks her the question, “Do you love me?”  As Jewish cultural traditions are being challenged and turned upside-down by events in society, his three oldest daughters are influenced and wish to marry for love, not having their marriages arranged by a matchmaker.  So too does the staunch traditionalist Tevye also begin to think about love as a legitimate reason for and component of marriage.

I have read and reread an excellent book by C. S. Lewis titled The Four Loves.  In it he treats affection (storge), friendship (philia), eros (the natural love of a man for a woman and vice versa), and Charity (divine love).  They are all of a piece and they all have a progression.  It has greatly helped me to understand the nature of love—how the three “natural loves,” affection, friendship, and eros or what we call ‘being in love’ can and ultimately must be subsumed and magnified if done right into the human version of Charity or Divine Love.  Our three “need loves,” as Lewis calls them, can be transformed into “gift love,” the kind of love God has for us; there is a higher love.

To develop it, there is an art to love.  There is also a law of love.  That is to say, there are attitudes, appreciations, expectations, and expressions or behaviors that show this most powerful of all human emotions in its finest light and which can ultimately refine a person to his or her highest potential.   But know, also, that love, or a deprivation of it, can bring any person to the greatest extremes of joy or down to the depths of despair.

How is it done?  As Jesus says, “As I have loved you, love one another.” It is done by looking outward and upward, not inward.  As we better understand the nature, requirements, cautions, duties, and rewards and conditions of love we can better live a life blessed by giving and receiving love—which, I submit, is more important to a rich and happy life than anything I can imagine.  But there is an order to it: a mature love gives first, and then finds, happily, that he receives.

Yes, Tevye’s marriage relationship with Golde has been functional and utilitarian—she has cared for him by cooking his meals, washing his clothes, keeping his house, and raising his children.  And he has faithfully provided for her and their children the necessities of life as well as protection and security.  But it has become prosaic. And he knows inside himself that he wishes and senses it could be more—her for him and him for her. Like all people, Tevye needs the reassurance and comfort that a happy acknowledgement brings. ‘Need love’ in humans never goes away—at least not until it is transformed.  In the meantime, it needs to be fed.

We know there is a geniality to love—a mutual gratification and happiness at being in each other’s presence that the sharing of common values provides. But it comes not by “seeking our own;” it comes by giving—“as I have loved you.” Love is the provision for the other the knowledge that they matter and that they are the provider (at least as far as another person can provide) for you as well.  Love goes both ways.

The question is not to our earthly love, “Do you love me?”, but “Do I love you?”—meaning, do I love God first--the way He loves?, and then, if I do, I will love you even more, and you will know of my love.

  

Indeed, we shall find, if we continue in faith and in hope that love for one another is our "work and our glory"—not just God’s.  And it will be enough, for Charity—Divine Love, "never faileth" to do its mighty work and to satisfy. 

THE POWER OF ONE'S NEED

The older I get the more I learn about the power of ‘need’ in the dynamics of human relationships.  I have not learned this through reading books, at least not on superficial or first readings (although maybe by assimilation over the years by acquaintance with good literature) but mostly I have learned it by observation or involvement with other peoples' needs. 

 

I had long observed that the perceived ‘need’ of the most powerful person in a relationship gets the attention.  Or, it was the squeakiest wheel, so to speak, that got the grease.  In more recent years, however, I have found that the most ‘powerful’ person is not always the healthiest, or oldest, or wisest person of the relationship.  Indeed, it can likely be a baby in a family or the sickest or loudest or most emotionally demanding person who drives the responses, resources, time, or attention of the primary caregiver or need-fulfiller.  I have also learned that primary caregivers usually get their role by default—or proximity.

In earlier, or less ‘enlightened’ times or cultures the most powerful person, and therefore the one whose needs were considered paramount—and thus met—was assumed to have at least one, and probably several of the following qualities: maleness, physical size, physical strength, wealth, other visible or bestowed resources.  If others didn’t recognize those ‘qualities’ – well, too bad: they had to bow to them anyway.  The ‘boss’ was the boss, no matter how he got that way. 

In the long run, though, it was more often than not in a compassionate relationship that the truly neediest person became the receiver.  Some people –infants, the very ill, the least able to survive unassisted—rightly became the focus of the best efforts of the closest related person who had and was willing to share his /her assets—augmented by professional help if it could be afforded. 

And so the role shifts.  We will all find ourselves at some time the best able to provide the help—and at other times the least able.  Every person in an intensive care unit at a hospital or in an ‘assisted care’ facility who still has even a modicum of cognitive ability left will tell you that.   If their need goes beyond that and they can no longer express it and if you have the courage to visit and really observe such a place, you will soon find it out for yourself.  And then, depending on the nobility of your character you may feel prompted to step up and attempt to fulfill the need.

    As my mother used to say, before she could no longer say it, “Getting old is not for sissies.” That is not just a cliché.  It often takes a long time for a young person to recognize that. 

What then is needed?  That which is always needed at every juncture of a person’s life—Charity, ‘the pure love of Christ.’ It really is the only way to responsibly meet the greatest, and for almost all, the last great challenge of life.

And if you are the grateful receiver, then just smile—if you still can. 

HANGING ON

I assume we’ve all seen the poster or picture of a frightened little kitten hanging on to a rope for dear life.  By common sense and past experience we know that a kitten or a person can’t hang on forever.  He has to make a decision or the decision will be made for him.  Fatigue or entropy will eventually win if he just decides to try to hang on without moving.  How many try to do that in the challenges of their lives?  It can’t be done for long.  One must move on or he will fall backward or off his rope.

I wish to speak today about not only holding on or letting go, but a third alternative—climbing upward.

A couple of Biblical scriptures come to mind:  The Old Testament prophet Elijah was not one to try to hang on to the status quo; he constantly enjoined people to move upward:  “How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God (of which fact Elijah had no doubt), follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.  And the people answered him not a word.”  The rest of the chapter records the result of the peoples’ equivocation and a prophet’s actions  (see 1 Kings 18:21).

For Christians, how does Jesus view such equivocation? To some church members in the time of his early apostles’ ministry he first gave commendation, to others encouragement, then to some who were halted in their progress a chastisement.

To illustrate I paraphrase, in light of my metaphor of the cat hanging on,  a passage from Revelation 3: 8, 10, 11, 12, 15-22. God knows what challenges we have and of the degree of our efforts to make it to the top of our rope.  Our “hour of temptation” is the temptation to let go, to quit, to cave in.  But he encourages us to “hold that fast which thou hast” (our rope—our worthy goal) and keep climbing!  There is great reward for those who make it to the top.  For some otherwise good people, though, he is not pleased: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot …so then because thou are lukewarm. . . I will spue thee out of my mouth.”  Why? Because of their apathy or fear.  Self-justification, he tells us, will not avail.  Start climbing!  “To him that overcometh” the fatigue and entropy of the daily challenges of life, “will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, . . . with my Father in his throne.”

Far too many people claim they are just hanging on; and in fact they may be if the only criterion they judge their lives by is their financial status or outlook. But the reality is that they are falling backward in their apathy as they waste the days of their probation spiritually, intellectually, physically or socially. 

There is always something we can do to move toward a higher goal.  And there is always somebody to help us. 

WARNING ! ! !

Don’t drink or drug!       Don’t drink or drug!      Don’t drink or drug!      Don’t drink or drug!       Don’t drink or drug!    
        Don’t drink or drug!

Could I make myself any more clear?

Maybe.

Don’t experiment.  Don’t try it (whatever it is that could be addictive).  Don’t think you ‘can handle it.’ Don’t cave in to someone else’s pressure or persuasion.  Don’t think it could be a temporary solution to an immediate problem.  Don’t think addiction can only happen to ‘losers.’ Don’t look at the ‘pretty people’ in advertisements or actors on television or sports ‘heroes’ who give the impression that they handle it just fine or that it increases their effectiveness as winner in society.  They know otherwise. When they look in the mirror they know that they are not a winner. Don’t hang with those who are users.  They may have laudable or attractive qualities but this isn’t one of them.  I used to tell my children, ‘If you stand near a campfire you will soon smell like smoke—whether you want to or not.’  In short, don’t start!  Please, don’t start.

I heard replayed a 1995 interview yesterday with Mary Tyler Moore, a vivacious actress who died earlier this week.  Her story, like that of all addicts, was tragic.  She had been an alcoholic in her years of stardom but few in her vast audience knew it.  She didn’t even know it herself (denial and blindness to reality in the early stages is just the way it is with addicts of whatever stripe, as she admitted) until it became undeniable.  She handicapped herself. Only until the physical and emotional and social costs to her became unescapable did she get the help she needed.  Even then, her regrets plagued her until her death. She had the money and other support to get the help; most addicts don’t.  Don’t start.

I did not know Mary Tyler Moore but I do know some people who had / have addictions.  These people are all around us.  We could (perhaps) help the street addict by giving them $5 when they hold up their cardboard sign on a street corner.  But I doubt if that helps much (if at all).  We could do other things for those less visibly afflicted to direct them to A.A. or other support groups and help sources.  Or we could do what I am doing here—making a proactive appeal to those young people or those older people who have never started on this road to hell.

 

For those of us who have all of our lives steered clear of these substances I would hope that you, too, would use your moral influence to raise the warning voice to the yet-unaddicted to not only save them, but save our society. 

A PROPHET

In 1923 a Lebanese-Syrian immigrant to the United States named Kahlil Gibran published a little book of poetic essays which he entitled The Prophet.  When I picked it up as a college boy in the 1960’s I was immediately struck with the many provocative and, of course, some debatable insights and thoughts the book presented.  I resonated with the book.  I thought at the time how fortunate it would be to have a real, a living prophet—like the Biblical prophets—on the earth to learn from. 

I later learned—though few on the earth yet know it or believe it—that there is a Prophet on the earth.  Indeed, there are several men who carry by ordination the divine prophetic mantle who serve with him.  But there are other ‘prophets,’ men and women though not ordained, who are on the surface very ordinary individuals who have lived lives of sufficient purity to receive divinely inspired insights. I have also learned that we all can.

Kahlil Gibran, and doubtless others, are of that caliber. 

How does one know?  I believe that one resonates to one of like mind.  As Gibran said, “Even as the strings of a lute are alone. . .they quiver with the same music.” C. S. Lewis said essentially the same thing—that there are men and women walking around on this earth who, if you are attuned, you immediately connect with because you, too, ‘quiver with the same music,’ or you would like to; they are that attractive to you.  

Brigham Young said that of Joseph Smith, Jr., the Prophet of our dispensation: “I feel like shouting Hallelujah, all the time, when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith, the Prophet whom the Lord raised up and ordained, and to whom he gave keys and power to build up the Kingdom of God on earth and sustain it.  I can truly say that I invariably found him to be all that any people could require a true prophet to be, and that a better man could not [now] be found upon this earth.” 

  

But to stick with our Lebanese ‘prophet’s’ more secular insights, I present a few of Kahlil Gibran’s gems:

 

·        Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

·        Do not fear the thorns in your path for they draw only corrupt blood.

·        Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

·        Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you.

·        I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange[ly], I am ungrateful to these teachers. 

·        You give but little when you give of your possessions.  It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

·        You pray in your distress and your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

·        Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.  And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.  And how else can it be?  The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

·        It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship.  Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity, and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created in years or even in generations.

·        You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.

·        To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to. 

·        Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

·        Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

·        Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.

·        They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

·        When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

·        Work is love made visible. 

·        The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. [I would say 'your heart.' See his next quotation.]

·        Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

·        Words are timeless; you should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness. 

Finally, I present one of his more “debatable insights” and let you (as with all the rest) draw your own conclusions drawing upon your mind and your heart:

·      “Modern civilization has made woman a little wiser, but it has increased her suffering because of man's covetousness. The woman of yesterday was a happy wife, but the woman of today is a miserable mistress. In the past she walked blindly in the light, but now she walks open-eyed in the dark. She was beautiful in her ignorance, virtuous in her simplicity, and strong in her weakness. Today she has become ugly in her ingenuity, superficial and heartless in her knowledge. Will the day ever come when beauty and knowledge, ingenuity and virtue, and weakness of body and strength of spirit will be united in a woman?” 
― Kahlil Gibran, Broken Wings

EXCUSES

As a former public school teacher I was quite used to the many excuses I would hear each day from students and receive as written notes from their parents.  In conversations with friends who were law enforcement officers or with colleagues who are golf course marshals we sometimes comment on the disingenuous excuses (they are rarely very creative) we hear from those we engage with who are in violation of laws/rules/expectations of the course. 

  

As a duty as an interviewing officer in my Church with ecclesiastical responsibilities I have also heard a fair number of excuses which had to be dealt with in the confession process before repentance could be complete and forgiveness come about.  Judges in courts of law and parents hear excuses all the time and have to cut through them to get to the truth of the matter.

If we were honest we would know that nearly everyone wants to rationalize or attempt to justify misconduct or deficient performance.  Even I have caught myself occasionally trying to gloss-over things until I bring myself up short and remember the folly of so doing.

In light of these realities I tender a few quotations (in italics and in red) I have accumulated over the years that give us some insight as to this unfortunate tendency of human behavior.  After all, “Since excuses were invented, no one is ever in the wrong.” 

The Bible warns us that “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2)  In fact, the entire book of Proverbs gives us many pithy and insightful variations on this and related themes.  I read it often. 

A few other warnings to those who tend to make excuses are:

         “He that once deceives is ever suspected.”

         “The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.”

          "The sting of a reproach is the truth of it.”  B. Franklin

          “Several excuses are always less convincing than one.”A. Huxley

“He that always complains is never pitied.”

Two wonderful quotations by Abraham Lincoln remind me of the “more excellent way” to deal with excuses or opposition by others:

            “Better give your path to a dog than being bitten by him in contesting for the right.  Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.” 

            “I wish no explanation made to our enemies.  What they want is a squabble and a fuss; and that they can have if we explain, and they cannot have if we don’t.  I shall do nothing in malice.  What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.”

Another way of putting it is: “Soft words are hard arguments.”  I take this to mean that 'soft words' are words like 'you are right, I really messed up on this one;' or 'I don't why I did that, I hope you will forgive me;' or 'I'm sorry.'

The use of 'soft words' or even no defense at all are an important part of the development of character.   Character is the ability to win an argument by keeping your mouth shut. 

So, why is it we are so prone to make excuses?  If we really think about it, we know we are not fooling ourselves.  And we should know that most of the people who we make excuses to are not fooled.  And certainly God is not fooled.  

How refreshing it is to engage with people who do not make excuses.  

LOYALTY (thanks, Jon)

I was never in our country’s armed forces and I never saw the movie, Band of Brothers.  I was never in a youth gang or took one of their oaths.  As a boy I was never such a rabid baseball fan that I would get into a fist fight or bitter argument over who was better, the Yankees or the Dodgers (the Yankees were indubitably better, although the Dodges had Sandy Kofax).  But I was in the Boy Scouts and I learned the Scout Law and recited it with conviction: “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.”

The training stuck.

It is hard for me to understand why more people do not more consciously choose to seek out those signal values (how can a person have a quarrel with any of them?) in being loyal to people and principles and causes that are true and will lead to peace in this life and set one on a course to a positive outcome in the life to come.

I work with a friend who recently said something like this to me:  “I check your blog every day but have been disappointed to see that you haven’t posted for 3 months.”  Well, that is loyalty.

 

I am embarrassed, sorry and will simply have to find the time produce these thoughts that I have been so prompted to do.  I have some reasons why I have lagged so badly these last several months but they just come down to excuses and I don’t have an abundance of patience for others who constantly have ‘excuses’ for certain of their behaviors. So why burden you with my excuses?  In fact, I have been thinking about writing about excuses as a topic for exploration and will do so sometime soon.  So thanks, Jon for getting me fired up again.  Even my own family members, I am quite sure, stopped looking long ago.

 

Now it is true, I cannot hope for a loyal following unless I produce something that benefits people and they recognize it.  Though it is satisfying to know that over the course of several hundred postings I have, at times, had several dozen (at least) regular readers, but I wonder if that is the real test of loyalty?

   

A Japanese dog that I read about decades ago locked me into the virtue of loyalty as a component of character and I have reflected upon his story as I have ‘examined myself’ periodically as encouraged by scripture.  Read about Hachiko on Wikipedia or on You Tube or other sources.  I have since learned of other dogs demonstrating this remarkable characteristic.  Though it would be absurd like ‘man’s best friend’ to daily lay on the grave or stand sentinel at the last place we saw our departed spouse/parent/child/hero in this life,  it would not be too much to be loyal to their memory, their teachings, their highest loyalties that we have inculcated in ourselves. 

   

For us, we should give our deepest loyalties to the highest causes.  For me, it is contained in the life and mission and gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ.  I believe that with an eye single to that standard, all other worthy loyalties will fall naturally into place.

Believing, as I do, that God is my Father in Heaven, (Jesus, himself, prayed to his Father who he said was our Father as well) we could keep this thought in mind:  ‘Be loyal to the Royal within us’ for our spirit is a child of royal birth.

   

As an aid to reflection or contemplation (as you will know if you have, over the years, been even an occasional reader of my weblog) I often turn to music to be my prompter or brain default which then turns on a stream of worthy thoughts that remind me of my loyalties.  I close with lyrics from two songs from my Church hymnbook that bear on loyalty and that you might consider adding to your mental lexicon:

            The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose

            I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;

            That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

            I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!

                                                Hymns, 1985, no. 85

            He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. O be swift my soul to answer him; be jubilant my feet!  Our God is marching on.
Hymns, 1985, no. 60