I fell in love last Saturday. She is a cherub with an incandescent smile named Elise. There is something simply irresistible about the wide-eyed innocence and trusting naivete of a toddler.
To her the world is a fascinating place filled with people who love her. Her joy of being alive was infectious as she wandered around the hall trailing drumsticks, or as she lolled lazily on the floor gurgling unintelligibly to a song she recognized, or when she plonked herself into the lap of her mother's choir mate with seasoned aplomb.
Although she is tiny, her insouciant presence brought palpable delight and I felt incredibly blessed and privileged every time she flashed me a grin of pure joy.
This is who I am created to be - a trusting being, secure in the beauty of my God-image and -likeness, enrapt with life's gorgeousness and the abundance of love that cocoons me. So what happened?
Original sin. The primordial evil that entered the world and causes me to fear and thus to be self-centred in order to protect myself from betrayal, injustice, manipulation and envy.
It is the incapacity to give myself to God or others with an instantaneous, child-like openness until trust has been proven or earned.
It is also a disintegration stemming from my woundedness that impels me to act with less than honourable intentions and barely admirable behaviour most of the time.
Is there a way for me to go beyond my human guardedness and insularity, to love again as Elise loves? There is. Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.
In the incarnation, God fulfilled His covenant with humanity by choosing to be in relationship with us in a way that risked a vulnerability to outright rejection and active hostility.
This is the story of Christmas, the greatest love story ever told, of the birth of Immanuel (God with us) who came into the world to show us how to love to the point of sacrificing His own life out of love for us.
Because of Him, we can be fully human as He was. We can reclaim the ethical imperative of loving beyond human reasoning by forgiving unconditionally all the undeserving people and impossible situations we face in life, day in and day out.
Even though we live in paradise lost, we can re-create paradise on earth. By being a sincere gift of self, we can find meaning in our lives and we can find ourselves, and ultimately, happiness.
Jean Vanier, founder of l'Arche, an international network of homes for people with intellectual disabilities, in his book Becoming Human says:
"To be human is to accept ourselves just as we are, with our own history, and to accept others as they are...to accept history as it is and to work, without fear, towards greater openness, greater understanding, and a greater love of others."
While we may live in a world with vast abysses of distorting relativism, greedy consumerism, self-centred individualism and deadly moral decay, we can choose to be like God, to love as He loves, and to be loved as a child like Elise is loved, for the beauty of her pure being.
So Christ's exhortation to "love your enemy" is not mere obligation or some crazy Christian stricture, but an empowering movement towards being fully human and fully divine.
To be. Just like Christ. Pure being. Pure loving. Pure forgiving.
To her the world is a fascinating place filled with people who love her. Her joy of being alive was infectious as she wandered around the hall trailing drumsticks, or as she lolled lazily on the floor gurgling unintelligibly to a song she recognized, or when she plonked herself into the lap of her mother's choir mate with seasoned aplomb.
Although she is tiny, her insouciant presence brought palpable delight and I felt incredibly blessed and privileged every time she flashed me a grin of pure joy.
This is who I am created to be - a trusting being, secure in the beauty of my God-image and -likeness, enrapt with life's gorgeousness and the abundance of love that cocoons me. So what happened?
Original sin. The primordial evil that entered the world and causes me to fear and thus to be self-centred in order to protect myself from betrayal, injustice, manipulation and envy.
It is the incapacity to give myself to God or others with an instantaneous, child-like openness until trust has been proven or earned.
It is also a disintegration stemming from my woundedness that impels me to act with less than honourable intentions and barely admirable behaviour most of the time.
Is there a way for me to go beyond my human guardedness and insularity, to love again as Elise loves? There is. Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.
In the incarnation, God fulfilled His covenant with humanity by choosing to be in relationship with us in a way that risked a vulnerability to outright rejection and active hostility.
This is the story of Christmas, the greatest love story ever told, of the birth of Immanuel (God with us) who came into the world to show us how to love to the point of sacrificing His own life out of love for us.
Because of Him, we can be fully human as He was. We can reclaim the ethical imperative of loving beyond human reasoning by forgiving unconditionally all the undeserving people and impossible situations we face in life, day in and day out.
Even though we live in paradise lost, we can re-create paradise on earth. By being a sincere gift of self, we can find meaning in our lives and we can find ourselves, and ultimately, happiness.
Jean Vanier, founder of l'Arche, an international network of homes for people with intellectual disabilities, in his book Becoming Human says:
"To be human is to accept ourselves just as we are, with our own history, and to accept others as they are...to accept history as it is and to work, without fear, towards greater openness, greater understanding, and a greater love of others."
While we may live in a world with vast abysses of distorting relativism, greedy consumerism, self-centred individualism and deadly moral decay, we can choose to be like God, to love as He loves, and to be loved as a child like Elise is loved, for the beauty of her pure being.
So Christ's exhortation to "love your enemy" is not mere obligation or some crazy Christian stricture, but an empowering movement towards being fully human and fully divine.
To be. Just like Christ. Pure being. Pure loving. Pure forgiving.
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