Scraping Thoughts

While de-icing my windsheild this morning, my mind wandered to a family I love that is going through some pain of saying goodbye to a family member. I thought I couldn't love them anymore, but what is it about pain that draws us closer? A joyful child draws us near, but a child that has fallen makes us reach deeper and expend ourselves further to him.

The lines of an Over the Rhine song came to me (ones I have struggled in understanding what Linford and K. are saying to us): "Pain is our Mother; she helps us recognize each other." Complete strangers are more than just backdrop to our lives if they are in pain... At a gas station this morning, a man was on the phone, obviously giving directions for someone to pick him up. If he were crying hysterically, I may have forgotten my own schedule, the consequences of my own life to see to him first.

Dare I take this one step further? What if we didn't wait for Pain. On any degree. Like thirst is actually a late cue of our being dehydrated, pain is late indication that love is needed. And I have a one-word definition for love: selflessness. It is impossible to be selfish and love. Likewise, try to be unselfish and not feel love.

I will be at that funeral tomorrow. I've resisted the current of love that runs so deep for that family for a long time, and, in part, I fear what may be turned loose as I mourn with them and rejoice in life and salvation with them. But we were made relational creatures. Christ himself calls us to love, as it is the definition of all law.