A MORE PERFECT LOVE

I read an excellent rather old but thought provoking article by Gilbert Meilaender in the February 2022 edition of First Things magazine, under the title “Reunion of the Far Shore.”  He addressed the desire Christians have to be with love-ones who have died. He wrote:

 

“What should be apparent is that thinking about our desire for reunion on the far shore directs us to add a problem at the heart of Christian life. How are we to hold together—to live together—the two great commands, to love both God and our neighbor? Clearly, if we think of God chiefly exists to satisfy our desires and make us happy, we are hardly loving him above all else. Moreover, it is hard to deny much in our loves and desires are misshapen and distorted, and that they often need not to be satisfied but to be redirected and perfected.”

 

He's right. What are Christ’s two great commandments. We find them in in Matthew 22:37-40, when Jesus responds to a pharisee who tested Him by asking what is the greatest commandment? Jesus responded, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” 

Out of our love for God should pour gigantic love for our neighbour and ourselves. Only in having a healthy self-love or self-concept, are we capable of properly loving others. I’m not talking about having inflated egos or conceit or a deluded sense of self grandeur; I’m referring to a self-awareness that we have being endowed with since our beginning with the indelible image of God, and that we are loved with unfathomable love by Him. 

 

The closer a person draws to God, the more he becomes aware of his own inadequacies and sin and distorted state of being.  Like Peter falling at Jesus’ feet, we are tempted to ask the Lord to depart from us because the blazing holy light of His presence exposes our darkness and sin, our unholiness.  He is perfect as we should be.[1] The light of His perfection, makes us turn away in shame.

 

I dare not delude myself to think that becoming perfect is possible in this life, only the next, even though Jesus said to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5.48). The Apostle James wrote “We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect and able to keep their whole body in check."2  Church tradition holds that James was the half-brother of Jesus (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Galatians 1:19).

 

I’ve fallen short of the mark so often, it could fill volumes to chronicle my failings. One of my faults—sins, has been misplaced love that has focussed of my family, at the expense of my love for God. I am guilty of breaking the 1st Commandment, for that I have confessed my sin.

 Mark

 

 

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[1] Cf. Leviticus 19:2, Deuteronomy 18:13, 2Samuel 22:31, 2Corinthians 7:1, Philippians 3:12.

[2] James 3:2.

SHOULD I START A PODCAST EXPLORING ISSUES OF DISABILITY?

 

Earlier in my life, numerous people tried to lure me to central Canada and away from my little French town in the hinterland of western Canada. Perhaps the most tempting offer that I remember (it was a very long time ago) was being offered a job to host a national TV series the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was planning in 1990 (I told you it was a long time ago). The series was going to deal with issues surrounding disabilities and showcase the lives of Canadians with physical and mental challenges.

 

The CBC flew me to Ottawa to meet with a senior producer at an elegant restaurant who presented me with the idea. There was only one catch: I would have to uproot my family and move to Toronto or Ottawa (I can't remember which city) and leave our small town life. It was an extraordinary opportunity—to be sure—one of the best I was ever offered during my short career. I must admit that I was tempted. 

But the timing was wrong: My children were young and settled. Uprooting them would have been too disruptive to their lives. Besides, we had extended family near who needed us. I looked out the restaurant window while the executive producer for the series sat across the table waiting for my response to her offer to host the show. That still small voice inside me said, "Let it pass." Reluctantly I turned down the opportunity.

 

Dreams of grandeur were not mine to have. God planned something else for me: Quiet contemplation in the midst of physical struggle rather than a television show. To the world, God's plan might have seemed laughable compared to the lights and glamour of television. 
 Just over a year later my disability forced me to retire and live on a modest disability pension. My disease kept ravaging my body and forcing my type A personality into stillness and contemplation. Days, months and years, then decades, were spent convalescing while looking out my window as seasons passed. Successive generations of blue jays flew to the bird feeder in the backyard. My hair turned white. Grandchildren were born. That still small voice whispered, “Be open to love for in love you will find God.” I discovered it is true. The meaning of my life did not come in a thunder-clap of glory rather in a breeze and ordinary rhythms of life. Sometimes we see most clearly through eyes blurred with tears. 

Looking back now, as a 72 year old man, I think God wanted to use my disability and paralysis with aggressive MS to teach me something critically important that can only be learned in quietude: The art of true love (both human and divine). God wanted me to stay put and wait on Him.

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Now, 35 years after the turning down my chance to host a national television program about disabilities where I could have taken my advocacy to Canadians across the nation, new technologies and new ways of communicating have emerged, I’ve decided to try and take a next step and try podcasting to complement the blog. What do you think?

Mark

IS THERE ABSOLUTE TRUTH?

The belief that Jesus Christ alone is the saviour of humanity and the only way to salvation has been a foundational tenet of Christianity from its beginning.  At the Last Supper, Jesus spoke to his disciples about the way to heaven. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life, No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14.6.) 

Jesus went on to promise “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept.” (verse 16-17) After Christ’s Ascension, Peter was filled with the holy Spirit (as promised) and proclaimed this about Jesus: “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” (Acts 4.12)  Pretty clear, pretty exclusive. The Apostle Timothy was equally clear: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2.5)

Unpopular message

This sort of message is not generally welcome to our age of pseudo-pluralism where truth is relative and people want to hear about many paths to God.  But if the testimony of Jesus, Peter and Timothy are to be believed, this is not true. The only way to God is through Jesus Christ.  Should I believe those who espouse that all religions are basically the same and there are many paths to God, or should I believe Jesus, Saints Peter and Timothy.  Hmmm, I wonder who it will be ? 

Truth is rarely fashionable—but it is knowable.  The truth is knowable because Jesus Christ is truth and the He is the saviour of the world, and we can know Him.

21^st century relativism

Many people in the 21^st Century no longer accept that there is such a thing as truth, and certainly no such thing as absolute truth. To them, the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth—there’s no right and wrong, only opinions.  All ethics are situational.  (Actually, if there’s no such thing as right and wrong then the concept of ethics is meaningless.)  Everybody is tolerant of everything; the only thing not to be tolerated is intolerance. What we are experience is the liberal left's emerging as intolerance of any views except their own. And as we see with the left's intolerance of even laws that don't meet with their approval. We witness that with violence such the riots in Minneapolis and Los Angeles in open defiance of law and order.

People must rely on laws as the only recourse for moral direction. But even laws can be changed with a simple majority vote and a stroke of a legislative pen. In a world of relativism, there is no higher Truth that exists apart from what legislatures declare and enforce. The final arbiter of truth is power. Change the government and what was right and true yesterday is replaced by a different government and a new set of standards and a different set of lawmakers. What was previously unthinkable can becomes the law of the land. Germany showed us that in the last century.

 

Without a higher moral Law or standard for people to agree upon and follow (or an author and giver of that higher Law or standard), all that’s left is consensus of those who are most powerful and cunning. If there’s no lawgiver, no Messiah to save us from ourselves, then ultimately most people will find no meaning or purpose to life, no truth, life will have no intrinsic value.   

Society may have to hunt down and jail criminals like Paul Bernardo or John Wayne Gacy to protect itself.  But if we seriously believe there is no such thing a right and wrong, no truth, then it’s pointless condemning what they did. After all, when they committed their sexual abductions, tortures and murders, their personal definition of truth may have been dominance and self-gratification.  Somebody may interject to say, “They had no right to impose their views on others or kill those women!”  Why not?  If there is no right or wrong, then there’s no basis to make such a claim.   

What is truth?

That’s why I find 21^st Century relativists suspect. In one breath they maintain there is no objective right and wrong, no absolute Truth.  In the next breath they’re decrying the destruction of the rain forests, or using animals in medical experimentation, or they’re marching in the streets against globalization or lawful deportation of illegal aliens. Methinks the relativist believes in objective truth more than he’s letting on and he expects the rest of us to agree (or at least acquiesce). Why? Well, according to the relativist, each person has his personal truth, his own standard of right and wrong, and he must not inflict his standards or morals on others. But that is exactly what relativists are doing when they march in the streets shouting and waving banners or destroying property. 

Now, if there is such a thing as objective truth, where does it come from? Christianity says Jesus is the Truth. His crucifixion and Resurrection gave rise to a tidal wave of love and hope for millions of people for more than two thousand years. 

Each person must decide if Jesus is the only saviour of the world. Personally, I’ve concluded the answer is Yes. Christ has utterly changed my life for forty-five years.