Can't  be separated from love

What does thoughtful look like? That can be difficult to figure out even when you know the person because of the tenderness of the situation. 

As a former chaplain, I learned that the safest way to go about it is requesting consent to come in, and if welcomed, stand close to the person being willing to listen more than to talk. Becoming comfortable with silence is a learned art. In my upbringing, silence was a sign of conflict in the family so silence stirred anxiety in me. Not so much anymore thanks to some practice and good teachers in whose presence, holding silence wasn’t that difficult. When or if appropriate some questions can facilitate meaningful conversation, like: Tell me about her/him?  

Anyway, in my last interaction with someone witnessing the death of a beloved life partner I discovered the eternal power of love.  When people’s physical presence leaves, love remains. There is deep pain because there is deep love. Daring to love someone well for a long time is a great privilege that comes with a high price: the price of pain. Pain because it hurts like hell to let their physical presence go. Yet, the memories and the deep love shared will remain in our bodies, souls and minds until it’s our turn to leave.      

The spiritual dimension of love can bring deeper comfort in the permanence of love. An interesting irony of the Christian faith is that the greatest sense of power and hope comes from a deep place of pain: from a naked human being dying in excruciating pain on a cross.  All the evils of the world ganged up on this man:  institutional injustice, jealousy from the powerful, betrayal, denial and abandonment from friends, except his best friend John, who stood by the cross along with Jesus’ mom Mary.     

Love has a permanent presence because it is attached to someone, to God. God is eternal and God is love. Christ, being fully God and fully human came to rebuild the bridge of connection between humanity and God. The bridge had to go through the cross. Or maybe the cross is the bridge between humans and God. Through the cross Christ connected us all back to the beginning: to our eternal existence in a loving community.  So the cross is that place that represents deep pain motivated by deep love, but there is hope. The third day will come. The hope of the resurrection turns death into a pause. It is not a pause for love, because we continue to love, it is a pause in our sharing of physical existence.   

Here is what John, Jesus’ friend who witnessed his death closely, had to say as he neared the end of his own life: 

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. … This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4: 7-13) It is so flattering to know that someone loved you first. That someone is God, and because he existed way before you, he loved you first. He loved you into existence.

John continues: “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:14-17)  Jesus left his Holy Spirit to us when his body had to leave this earth.  I wonder if there is an equivalent to when our loved ones have to leave earth. I wonder if their spirit lives within us eternally thanks to the power of love.  By spirit I mean the essence of that person: their kindness, their patience, and all their specific ways of being, and acting in this world. We have internilized their essence when we see in us some of the traits of that person. We talk or act differently because of them. Maybe they introduced you to the love of certain foods, or activities, or ways of approaching things. This way in which a person's spirit "remains within us" is bigger than death. Maybe love has the power to swallow death. That's what the story of the cross is about.  On the cross love swallowed death. The story of our love and of our pain are part  of a bigger story. God's story, which is a story of eternal love. All of us, those who went ahead and those who are left behind, continue to remain in God, becasue we remain in love, that is we keep loving that person. Love never dies.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God. (Rom 8:34)

Let’s keep reading John: “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4: 18 - 19)

So we keep loving without fear, even fear of death. Knowing that Christ continues to be our love line of communication we can continue to express our love in creative ways. 

Claudia Rossetto