Friends and Lovers

The last few weeks, I’ve been pausing mid-week to share some meaningful quotes from Friendship as Sacrament, a book about how humans relate to each other. [You can get more info about the book and other books about friendship here.]

I’ve met people who are possessed by God. You have met them too. There is a gentle reverence about all they do. You sense the holy even in the way they butter their bread. Those who are possessed by God are in the truest sense lovers. [Tweet “We use “lover” for romance. But all of us are called to be lovers in all our relationships.”]

After walking on the road to Emmaus with Jesus and not recognizing him, his disciples realized it was Jesus when he broke bread with them. As their eyes were opened, the disciples commented among themselves, “Were not our hearts burning inside us?” …We too can have an Emmaus experience whenever we recognize Christ in a friend…We will know it is Christ because our hearts will burn with the fire of love, and that burning heart is a sure sign that Christ is present.

With all the technologies, sophistication, and complexities of the modern world, life still all boils down to one person loving another. [Tweet “When Jesus said “Love one another” he was asking us to fuss & worry about each other.”]

He was asking us to respect, care for and become intimate with each other; to make excuses for, forgive, encourage, trust and cherish each other…that only love makes sense of life.

Jesus’ brand of love that culminated in the resurrection and the victory of love is not sentimental. It involved hard core realities like dealing with life’s ugliness: withered hands, blood-stained garments, leprous bodies. …Jesus’ love involved raw earthiness. [Tweet “Jesus’ love mixed dirt & spit to cure the blind, washed dirty feet & died on a bloody cross.”] Lovers who want to be true sacraments of God’s love can forget romanticism and instead live Jesus’ brand of love: touching and holding the ugly as well as the beautiful, getting their hands dirty because in loving, dirt and blood and sweat and tears don’t really matter.

[Tweet “Some of us are physically alive but internally dead & in urgent need to be loved back to life.”]

 Photo source: paper hearts