the garden

I watched as a woman held the hand of a crippled man, her husband, and I began to think of the purity and simplicity of love. 
When was it corrupted?  Why do we allow so much of the world to crowd in and influence it? 
We are eternal wanderers in a world that is fading away, pulsing to life and then degrading bit by bit.  We are redeemed people, meant to settle in a temporary promised land and told not to let it change us as are meant to change it.  To be able to love someone is a gift; without preference, prejudice and most of all, without selfishness.  Despite potential outcomes, it shouldn’t be biased.  Despite brokenness of its subject, it shouldn’t be lessened.  Despite circumstances, it shouldn’t be adjusted or withheld.  It should be promoted constantly, willing to outlive and outlast anything that comes its way.  It shouldn’t be circumstantial because, if we let it, it will change others despite what they do in response to it.  Its subject is not the self, but another.  Its example is Christ, who died at the hands of sinners in order to save them.  No matter what the outcome, it doesn’t cling to expectations that have their foundation on Earth, but waits in eager anticipation for the glory of its subject as one day they will be presented pure to Christ.  Now we only know love in part, but it is still the greatest quality we can bear.  The part we know needs to encouraged; when expressed and felt correctly, it shapes us and others. It wipes away, sometimes like fire and sometimes like water, the qualities in us that are selfish.  It shapes us and others to become more like Him.  Don’t allow it to be crowded out and corrupted; or, if you do (when I do), stop calling it love because it has become crowded out so much as to become almost unrecognizable.
Where did it become corrupted?  Who listened to the voice that told us we could be in control?  Who knew that maybe love wasn’t about having answers, but about being one.

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