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Love-Hearts Day

epgrace


I come by my sometimes unhealthy obsession with holidays honestly.

 

As a child, my father was so captivated by these festivities that he had a large paper desk calendar where he was collecting days of celebration to see if he could find at least one for each day of the year. Any culture. Any nation. Just wanted to add to life's enjoyment.

 

This was 1991, long before the ridiculous lists of honorary observances for coffee and donuts and Lord knows what else. And the internet was not yet a public resource.

 

This month we come to our annual observance of what my boys call "love-hearts day." And while the greeting card and candy companies have largely co-opted the remembrance, the truth is that love is something that is always worth celebrating.

 

The ancient Greeks had at least six words for love, each given to a specific category of how we build relationships with others and even ourselves. There is, of course, romantic love. Love between equals or siblings or friends. Love between parents and children. Love of self, both positive and negative. Love that is hospitable to the stranger. And finally, true unconditional love - the kind of love that God has for us. This particular word is agape and stands as the most essential kind of love we are meant to seek.

 

In ancient Hebrew, there were also several words for love. At the heart of them all is chesed, perhaps the most important aspect of who God is. It can be translated many ways - steadfast love, lovingkindness, mercy, loyal relationship, grace, and, as Walter Bruggemann rendered it, tenacious solidarity.

 

What this shows us is that the crimson thread of who God is flows beautifully back and forward through time. God has always been this self-giving Love, in the community of the Trinity, and always seeking more to love. Hence why we even exist.

 

It is not only the core of God, but the crux of who we are as well. For we are made in that divine image. Not referring to a specific physical appearance or gender, but instead in the image of perfect community that we also might love and be loved. And, make that love grow ever more around us.

 

We are to love our neighbors with that same unconditional love. Every neighbor. Every other person on this planet.

 

That is our truest purpose and calling.

 

Tenacious, radical, reckless, tangible love for all within our reach.

 

May it be so on love-hearts day and every day.

 

Blessings,

Rev. Janie

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