My dear friend Chuck just posted his thoughts on Valentine’s Day and I was prompted to write the following comment.
We are called upon to love each, full stop (or period, as you say on your side of the Pacific). That means no exceptions and that’s the hardest thing about our faith; we are called to love all, regardless of who they are and what they have done. Not just our loved ones and the nice people but those we visit through prison ministry, those who cut us off in traffic and those whose theology is different from ours. Most of all, we are called to love those who we most abhor, revile, reject, denounce and exclude. Let’s turn Lent on its head and, rather than giving something up, let this be a time where we all take something on and try to love the unloveable. In doing so, we may just catch a glimpse of Him.
I am blessed to have known all sorts of love in my life. Of late, I have resolved to try my best to love all I come into contact with. I fail abysmally every day but each new morning I resolve try again. How can I not when I receive the very same grace myself?