Love

Charity is the pure love of Christ. Unpacking that preposition teaches us that charity is actually 3 things: love for Christ, love from Christ and love like Christ. Charity is what we're about--all of it. The love from Christ is a given. He came, He loved, He loves. We just have to believe it to feel it. Loving Christ and loving like Christ are somewhat more of a process and pathway. From the scriptures we know that we love Christ by keeping His commandments. That involves constant recommitment, repentance, study and persistence--covenants, ordinances, and enduring to the end. Loving like Christ is part of our covenants, part of our enduring and yet, something grander, bigger and both far more complicated and yet simpler than any other part of charity. Sometimes, a lot of times, we confuse charity with alms, with writing checks and providing handouts. That can be a part of charity, but it isn't enough on its own and it can actually drive us away from charity if it fuels our pride.

Love. I've talked about trying to accept the gifts that people are giving, to realize that no one can skip steps, that I definitely can't make them skip steps, that my admonition is to love them where they are, who they are now. That is definitely an element of Christlike love and while that should definitely be an element of how people love me, I can't focus on their obligation to love me where I am. I can't do what I want to do, love as I want to love and insist that people accept the gift I am giving. That is failing the first bit about loving people where they are and that also means trying to learn to love them how they need to be loved. That is so complex and in some ways unknowable. In fact, the only way we can even begin to know, is to ask God. He knows.

Frequently, we hear stories of people who were inactive, unresponsive to gospel invitations who were loved back into participation in the church and in the gospel by people who didn't focus on church, on pushing them to come, on making any part of their love conditional on attendance. In fact, that was the story I heard today in my Relief Society lesson--gratitude for someone who was just her friend, loved her despite her lengthy inactivity, befriending her regardless of her unchurchiness and in so doing, loved her back into church. The subtext I heard was inviting and encouraging someone to reactivate themselves is judgey and fake--checking boxes and such. I probed that concept in my mind (after church, of course). Why do I encourage people to come back to church? Am I being judgey and box checkey? Probably sometimes. I am a rule follower. An obliger of outer expectations. And yet, I invite and encourage because of love on two levels. I want them to feel love and strength from fellowship, from service in a unified goal. I want for them what I have found on the best days at church. But also, I know that I am not so good at friendships outside the patterns of my life. If you are not where I am already, I frequently lose touch, not because I don't genuinely want to cultivate a friendship, foster love, but because there is only so much peopley stuff I can do and my large family takes up a lot of that allotment and my own activity in church takes up almost all of the rest. If I don't care for my margins, my empty calendar blocks, my solitude, I begin to not do very well. I am an introvert, not shy really, but I definitely draw strength and energy from solitude and exhaust myself in more peopled pursuits. So, if I'm inviting you to church, to activities, it's because I want to see you, have you with me in my full life.

But. That may not be what you need. That invitation may be illegible to you as intended, you may only be able to hear the box checking and impersonalness not intended. And so, I am not loving you as you need to be loved, so it doesn't much matter that I am trying to love you as I am able. I need to learn how you need to be loved. I need to ask. I am often afraid to ask these questions of God, certain that He will want me to abandon my margins, extend myself completely outside my comfort zone. But, doesn't He love me too? Don't I need to trust Him that He will give me something I can do, a stretch, but not a strain? I need to ask how to love people and be willing to listen for the answers and act on the guidance. It has happened before. When I am trying, He gives me hints--go now, call now. Try this. And it is always something I can do, if somewhat uncomfortable, not entirely loathsome. Why can't I trust that more?

Wherever I am on the knowing how to love people better, I know I have been blessed to feel God's love for people, when I ask. That was the other remembered lesson from Relief Society, that to better love individually, as God loves us individually, I need only to ask, to feel it, to see it, to know who to listen for, who to watch for, who I am to love. What a blessing.