The Boy and the Fly

Do you remember the times when you just feel so ignored by everybody? As i drew this i was reminded once again that the key point about this scenario is not about us being the boy in the illustration but rather more importantly, are we being the fly? As we being too busy or too obsessed with what we have to do and being too "sucked in" by our culture with a heavy efficiency accent?

I was reminded once again as i read Rachoo's blog that there is flip side to loving someone and that is to leave all others unloved for the moment or period of time. The more you love someone or something, the more time is spent for that subject matter and interest skewed towards a certain direction. The more you love a particular someone or something, the lesser time and interest you have for everything else.

Having said this, the question that Samantha asked quite some time back still rings in my mind; "How can we reconcile the concepts of love versus and that of divine love"; meaning to say that if the concept of loving means to leave all others unloved. How then can God's pure, undivided and eternal love be for an individual and yet that same love be for everybody as many individuals all the same.

Without going too deep on the doctrinal issues on God's omnipresence, omnipotence and divine love, more importantly i figured that any theological answer if given (for this question) would still leave one unsatisfied because the very nature of the question derives from the heart. The heart seeks to feel and the mind seeks to know. Somehow we need more then ever to rescue those answers from doctrinal statements and put it into our hearts. And therefore i would say that this question can only be fully answered by having a personal relationship with God himself, the strength of the relationship is defined as faith and this gives spirituality its meaning.

Lifted from Rachoo's blog and qouted from Lewis Smedes in his book "Love Within Limits", he wrote this, "When Jesus healed one leper, he left hundreds unhealed. His life was a continual series of choices to love one way and not another." The keyword here is continual.

The personhood of God is manifested through Christ. Yes we are not God and we cannot love all people at the same time but let that not be an excuse to just sit back with the we-are-made-like-this attitude. Jesus said to his disciples: "Love one another even as I have loved you. If we as Christ's disciples, all seek to be more and more like him, should we not then follow his example? Now i understand the reason behind the impetus that the late Mother Theresa had for her ministry in Calcutta.

When i was in Indonesia what impacted me most is the many "Mother Theresa"s that i met. I had the opportunity to most importantly witness them in ministry. Its really amazing how love devoid of all intentions can minister to people.

Has love lost its implications in modern context? I don't want that to apply to me. I pray that i'll be a good steward of the time given to me so that i'll be able to spend more time with people for they are also my ministry. To live everyday as my last or their last.

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ps: I have written a blog post in the past about loving devoid of all intentions and i thought that it would be a nice compliment to what i wrote here, you can read it at this link.