But the fruit of the Spirit is
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control.
There is no law (Jewish Law) against such things.

I may give away everything I have, and I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But I gain nothing if I do not have love.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud.

(from a letter to Corinth)

Love is not 'if' or 'because'

Love is 'ANYWAY' and 'EVEN THOUGH' and 'INSPITE OF'

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is no greater power in Heaven or on Earth than pure, unconditional love. The nature of the God force, the unseen intelligence in all things, which causes the material world and is the center of both the spiritual and physical plane, is best described as pure, unconditional love.

Wayne Dyer

I'm going to love my daughters; I'm going to love them no matter what they do. Because, you know what, God gives me unconditional love. I'm going to give it to my family and my friends and the people around me.

John Kasich

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

Mother Teresa

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

and to knowledge temperance;

and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

and to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter

Do not neglect the gift that is in you.

living water

I am made in the image of God, not your image of God.

(Speaking of the often misrepresented broad and narrow ways of Jesus)

It is easy to say, God is love. It is easy to say that, but being a loving person in a hateful world is difficult.

It is easy to pray for peace or talk about peace, but being a peaceful person in a violent world is difficult.

It is easy to recieve forgiveness or say God is forgiving, but to forgive a person who has hurt you in a world that processes things with vengeance; that is difficult.

And that's a cool thing Pastor Erin Wyma told us.

PROGRAM LISTINGS & PROGRAM SCHEDULES

Everybody poops!

The True Nature of Authentic Love: unconditional. Ooops! Have we reached that part yet? Unconditional? Not sure! Well, let's call 'unconditional love' a hypothesis at this stage. Can 'unconditional' stand the authenticity test? How should we go about testing thIs claim? Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Any ideas? Okay, I've got an idea. Here goes.

Scenario Number One

First, let's go to the Big Guy - Our Lord Jesus Christ. He was answering a question, remember! The question: "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?" I say, this questioner went straight for the gullet, directly to the heart of the matter, wouldn't you?

How did Jesus' respond? In modern parlance: "'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." 

Now that's a double-tripple-quadruple whopper of a response: the whole kit and caboodle in one! A W E S O M E. Our interest is in its pivotal piece: LOVE!

Scenario Number Two

Here is Jesus again! His life as it was known then was about to end. If only you could feel the moment! Uh! Let's eavesdrop on a tiny portion of what he is telling his disciples during this crucial moment. "Little children, I am with you only a little while longer. You will look for Me, and as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you: ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” Oh, glory!

So is love unconditional? Can we put this love through the authenticity test?

Yes, we can. I'll show you, then I let you complete it. You see, I am learning too. We are sifting love's grit through the grid labeled, Love is not PROUD.

Ready?

Sharing time!

I mean, ahem, confession time. Can we talk?

I first read the bible while I was a boy, that is, before I was ten years old. Why am I telling you this? You'll see in a moment. I read the bible, that is, from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. It has sixty-six books, did you know? Actually, some of these books are letters. Generally, sixty-six is the number. Generally!

Poor boy! (Did I hear you say?) Well don't! Let's get some perspective.

No one told me to read it. No, I wasn't a little budha in training. No, I didn't have some spiritual instinct to do it. Nope! Had no idea of the politics, the religion, the spirituality, the complexity, the anything that surrounds confusions about this book. It was a book amongst books my mother read and read to me. I wanted to read too. And it was there. And I read it. Why am I telling you this? You'll understand in a moment.

Was it hard? Was it difficult? I have no idea. That's not the way I approached it. I just read it. Was it a children's version? No. It was the King James version with all of its thees and thys and thous. I was learning french and latin around the same time, so I didn't think of my reading as anything other than a cool escape from life's ugly dramas and cutting cruelties into a realm plotted with story after story after story punctuated with various lists. Well, they seemed like lists to me then. Did I have questions? Lots! And I asked. Some times the answer was, "You tell me what you think it means." Some times the answer was, "You tell me what it says to you." Sometimes the answer was, "Read it again."

Yes, I read the bible a second time, cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation, not yet twelve. Why? Life was becoming very interesting now. We had studied the Book of Matthew in school. The following school term we studied the Book of John. This was exciting! (It was to me like studying literature or history - let me be clear - no proselytizing, or if there was, somebody failed miserably, and I found the stories of the life of Jesus Christ quite intriguing.) So I read the whole book again. This time the New Testament first. Next, the Old Testament, for this time I discovered I could break the book into four covers. Who knew?

Luke was on another school's curriculum. Someone challenged the class to read the entire bible. I took up the challenge. No trophies. This reading was rather enlightening. No pressure. No bible-thumper around me. No test. No one looking over my shoulder. You should read it too. Why am I telling you this? Get ready. But sheath your swords. Lay down your shields. I want no injuries.

It was a nice and sunny day. I was a scout.

Thousands of people were heading to the park. Forty thousand, I was told. I didn't count the crowd. Curiousity took my buddies and I there. Actually, they followed me. We locked our bikes - ooops - now left beneath the metal crunch. We stayed. The music was awesome. And the preacher was on fire.

Not only the preacher!

Everything was a fever pitch.

People crying everywhere.

The preacher - full bore, he was so good - dramatized from a bible being waved like a sword in battle, across the huge stage, a fire-breathing God so upset, so angry, so uncontrolable, this god was grabbing humans left, right and center, burning the living daylights out of each of them then casting them one by one into an unending rage of monstrous fires, the which none shall ever escape. Hell!

This earnest man was reading passages from the bible I had read, so how come I missed that whole section of raging fires in three readings. His rendition had people everywhere trembling. I was trembling to get my hands on the book. What did I miss? How did I miss it? What God is this that was fitly more of the devil of my boyhood miseries than to the Wonder of my teenage intrigue? I am not going to take an easy liking to this particular god. This is a coercion! Totally! But who dares!

Is it the fool or the wise that does not hedge his bets? We'd better do what the preacher says, for our bicycles are in a crunch. There is going nowhere before this crowd piles out. And this God is on fire! And we are in striking reach of theis God's rage. We hedged our bets. Safe, at last. We could ride on home free of lightening bolts.

So I did - post haste!

Out came my bible!

Bye-bye sleep.

The preacher was nice enough to identify the passages he was dramatizing. I had hoped to remember them all. I did. Besides, they are quite popular passages; they are not hidden. They are unsheathed. They do damage.

I read them.

Hmmm?

I read them again.

I've got to be blind, I told myself.

I read them again. I can see how he can get to that! I have an imagination too. Mine don't take me where his went. I'd have to skip this to get there. I'd have to ignore this to get that.

My God is on fire, alright! My God is on fire with a love so hot, it burns away the thick dross to reach me and keep me and secure me, and not me alone. I kinda like my God way better. No apology. Okay, sleep, let's hug our pillow. But I didn't mind if the preacher's fire-breathing God were to burn the hell out of a few people I knew. And quite a few I didn't know as well. Dump them in hell! No time would be too soon. Oh dear, I'll need to read the book again. And I did. But something quite extraordinary happened in between. A relationship! Ooooh-wee! Such vitality. Love! Love! Love! Such overflow. Love. Love. Love. I need to contain myself.

So why am I telling you this?

Perspective!

I am not selling my perspective. And I think it quite foolish to ignore my perspective. Why? Would you ignore your perspective?

It is only natural! Our perspectives are often first shaped by the happenstance of our approach to a discovered reality, then by our experience of that reality, and by other recieved views of that reality. In the norm, these all work in consort with one's orientation to reveal the discovered reality in a way perfectly or conveniently suited to the individual. Perhaps one's orientation is faith. Just saying!

So how can we test the authenticity of love to determine if, in the light of varied perspectives, this love is indeed unconditional?

Love is not proud.

Here comes the test (spoken to the tune of 'Here comes the bride, all dressed in white.') Just kidding. Ready?

According to Jesus The Christ in the mentioned passages:

• How ought one to love God? With all of one's heart AND all of one's soul AND all of one's mind.
• What ought to be the nature of one's love to a neighbor? The same as one loves one's self.
• With what kind of love ought one to love another? As I (Christ) have loved you.

Only one of two conditions can apply to the heart and soul and mind. Yes, in parts or as a whole it is by nature either authentic or inauthentic. For each or all of these to be proven authentic, this test is whether it is of undisputed origin, accurate, reliable, genuine. So, what say you? Be genuine! One doesn't have to be a virgin to be genuine. Seeing anything? Feeling anything?

Of what condition ought the heart and the mind and the soul to be? BINGO! No condition is ascribed a necessity to this love. So pour in all of it. Broken heart: pour it in. Full heart: pour it in. Sick soul: pour it in. Healthy soul: pour it in. Confused mind: pour it in. Uppity mind: pour it in. Pour all in. This love has a healing power. Perhaps this love duly gone in will all come out whole - authentically so.

Shall we apply the test to one's love of one's self? BINGO! Are you for real? Love your neighbor.

Here comes the clicker: is Christ's love conditional or unconditional? Hmm? And is it authentic? What say you? Oh! You're waiting on me to tell you?

What if - what if - we love one another with the same kind of love Christ loved his disciples? What if each of us gives a good go of it? Set your own time frame. I have mine. When I look upon Christ's life, as is played out in the scriptures I have read, I see a love that is not proud. Very much the same with Christ's death: a love that is not proud. Likewise with His resurrection: a love that is not proud. Even now with my ongoing experience: a love that is not proud. This is not a test. Not for me, it isn't. Thank God almighty! It might be for you, and that's okay. Do whatever it takes you to pass your way. I'd encourage each of us not to beat up on others to pass your test. I recommmend love. Real love. What about you?

Love is not proud. This is not a shameful love; it is unconditional. It is not arrogant nor disdainful nor snobbish nor pompous nor condescending, nor gives two hoots what anyone else thinks of it. it is an engaging love, a love full of heart and soul and mind. It has a healing power: comfort. Isn't it awesome to discover 'love is not . . . proud?'

Being fully functional and wholly human!

Love . . .

"Love is an active, accountable, responsible 'being' that makes decisions reflective of its authentic self."

Love has a healing power - comfort! And it can break - nope - it is not love that breaks the heart; it is a relationship that can rip it apart. But why split hairs here; definitions don't matter when you're kicked to the curb, when the hum is gone, when you feel discomforted!

Oh, Dear Lord, what do we do now?

"Love is an active, accountable, responsible 'being' that makes decisions reflective of its authentic self."

Hmmm! I see. I think I do. Everybody poops. Even royalty. And the lost boy living on bullied streets. The constipated old woman too, eventually! You poop. Now, what do you do? We learn what to do, don't we? Inspite of it we are who we are! To know this, that is a great catch!

There is much more to love - we are uncovering - and we ought not with what we know now get 'love' and 'relationship' confused. The two are not the same. They are intertwined but not the same. Jesus loves. They killed Jesus! And still, God loves. Jesus rose again. Bring love to your relationship, a love that is not proud, a love that does not succomb to foibles and failures of moments. We are about to experience what that means and how very valuable it is to discover love is not proud.

"Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." Elif Shafak.

.

Something To Consider

* * *

You are

What a PRIVILEGE!