« Blessed | Main | Giving Thanks »
Ballast Body
By daniel | May 23, 2004
Hey Fam!
Love, honor and trust. We?ve seen a lot of these words over the past few weeks and good thing, too. These items float right around the heart of what it is to be people, and people is what we are ? or at least what we are becoming. I?d like to take a few moments and explore love and honor a little this morning.
Love is not a feeling; it is an act of will. Hopefully we have that down now. Such a thought is revolutionary for the couple about to split up. “I just don?t love you anymore.” Well, you probably don?t, but you are not helpless. Choose to love her and then do it. Feel however you feel, but love intentionally.
But what does love feel like? I?d say it feels like lots of things. When you love someone you are a candidate for a pretty broad emotional experience. Delight, affection, intoxicated infatuation ? these, sometimes, are the fare of love. More often than not these feelings are associated with what the public at large calls love. But anyone who has loved knows that pain, betrayal, disappointment, fear and the like are also par for the course. When you love people what they do with themselves and what they do to themselves are very important to you; so, you feel, and you feel many different things.
One feeling, though, has been a constant when I have loved. I cannot remember ever loving someone and not feeling this way. That is not to say that love is this feeling; rather, I?m only offering this feeling as a descriptor of how love might usually be experienced. And I could be wrong.
Love feels like a big hunk of concrete in my chest ? a great weight that, on the whole, makes me lighter. Once, my brother in law explained to me the concept of the ballast body. Ship builders will put a heavy weight, sometimes made of concrete, in the bottom of their vessels; it keeps the downward part of the vessel down. This way, the ship is not apt to roll, and regardless of whatever outside forces may be acting on her, the ship is apt to maintain her course, more or less, due to the momentum acquired by the ballast body.
That?s how love feels to me. Regardless of whatever outside forces may be acting on me, regardless of the benevolent or downright hurtful actions of the one I love, I have this weight in my chest ? utter devotion to the well-being of the other ? that holds me to the agape-course, steadied by the momentum of selfless choices. However else I may feel, I feel responsible. And that responsibility holds me to my heading, steady as she goes.
And then there?s honor. When I was a kid I?d wait alone for the school bus to come to my stop. Fortunately, the bus stop was right in front of my house, so I?d stand in my driveway and carry on long-distance conversations with my mom through the kitchen window. As the bus came down our street my mom would shout, “I love you!”
“I love you, too!” I?d shout back.
“I love you three!”
“I love you nine!” I?d reply and hurry onto the bus before she could let fly an integer greater than nine. I?d smile and wave out the school bus window, aware that I was loved. More importantly, aware that I had loved.
What if our lives could become a game like that? What if each directed our creative juices into out-loving each other? How would our life together be if every time you treated me well I treated you better, and you likewise ? not for competition, but simply as expressions of generous love?
This is what Paul has in mind in Romans 12:10. The original reads something like this: devoting yourselves to one another in brotherly love; out-honoring one another. As Al has been saying, love expresses itself actively as we honor one another. Paul would add, as we “out-honor” one another. Hold that thought in your mind for a moment. If just a few of us did that ? actually did what the Bible says ? our life together would become an ever-improving love affair, a crescendo of mutuality and generosity.
The great thing is that it?s simple. We start where we are by treating each other well ? no, we treat each other better, ever-better. We devote ourselves to the practice of brotherly love in mutually out-honoring each other. We abandon the ridiculous niceties of pompous Christian culture ? we stop settling for being nice to each other and we start being good to each other ? and we embrace the Way of Jesus step by step, neighbor by neighbor, opportunity by opportunity. We refuse to keep score, that is, we do not keep any record of wrongs against us, nor do we add up the kindnesses afforded us to make sure we owe no favors. We do not owe. We give. We abandon reciprocity (giving as good as we get) for generosity (giving as good as we can), trusting that God will take care of us, even if no one else will.
And therein we find joy. As God meets our every need while we are busy seeing to others, out-honoring one another, we learn to find Him trustworthy. As we come to trust Him we gain a place to stand to learn to trust others (the ones busying themselves in devotion to brotherly love, treating us and others ever-better). See how this works?
My advice is this: you start the chain reaction. You do it. Do not wait to be treated well before you treat well. That?s not devoting yourself to brotherly love; that?s dabbling in it. But I have been so hurt, you say. Well, you can live as a cripple or you can pick up your bed and walk. Your call. If I stop defending myself and start honoring others before they honor me, they will take advantage of me and hurt me again, you say. Well, you can stand there terrified of the waves or you can pick up your bed and walk on them. Your call.
Jesus calls us to a life of mutual love ? that buoyant weight of responsibility that inevitably expresses itself in ever-increasing interpersonal honor. He also equips us with all we need to live that way ? the Holy Spirit. And, He gives us a safe place to learn this Way ? the church.
So let?s say thanks and get to it, shall we. You start.
Virgil
Topics: Uncategorized |
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.