Love Life Word Work

I was in downtown Franklin today to pay our water bill at the City of Franklin complex. (We don’t live in the city limits [yet] but we do get our water from Franklin.) Anyway, they have a multilevel parking garage so I started up looking for a space. There were some narrow ones but I didn’t want to squeeze so I kept going up. Up up up. Finally I was almost to the open rooftop part when I found one to park in. I went in to the water office, paid my “spot cash money” and climbed the stairs again to the third level. As I found my car I looked out the opening in the wall and saw something that made the climb worthwhile.

I could see down into the foundations and basements in the construction site across the street. So, having my digital camera in the car where I always try to keep it when I go anywhere, I took some pictures. It’s not often I see building foundations as notable as these. If I had only seen them from street level I wouldn’t have taken notice.

One of these days I would like to build a good house on  a good foundation like one of these. And basements as nice and as deep as the ones enclosed by these foundations, I would love that.

Here is a view, a closer view and an even closer view:

These are just about the prettiest basements I have ever seen.

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I have had a bookmark on a particular page in Kierkegaard for a couple weeks because I didn’t want to lose that page until I had made a note on it. Today I am making that note, then reading on. I’m not sure I’ve got everything out of it yet, probably not, but at least I am writing this post about it and so there will be a record of the quote and my thoughts and response to it.

The page in question is in Søren Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript as translated by Donald F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie, very bottom line of page 61 and top of 62. Here’s what I read there:

As for God, he is never a third party when he is present in the religious consciousness; this is precisely the secret of the religious consciousness.

First of all, I’m going to encourage you not to be put off by the phrase “religious consciousness”. Religious consciousness is not a special kind of consciousness or even a special interest; it is normal human consciousness. Everyone’s consciousness is religious because everyone wants to love and be loved and God is the source of love.

My interest is piqued and excited by this passage because it reminds me of God’s closeness. “He is closer to me than I am to myself.” (An essay here) He is not third party in my consciousness, which is my relationship with myself. And He is not third party in community, which is my relationship with other people.

Years ago there was a popular tune, “From a Distance,” by Bette Midler. It’s a beautiful anthem and I could enjoy the truth it points up … until the point in the song where it said, “God is watching us from a distance.” That made no sense to me whatsever. A god who watches from a distance is a third-party god, an arms-length god, a distant god.

God is with us. Jesus Christ, His Son, showed us He is close, not far. Ramifications? There are lots of them, and one of them is that we need never be alone—because we are never alone. But how to be sure? and how to live it out? The same way we have always known. We relate to God by faith. And we relate to others and ourselves by faith.

God is with us—why do we act as if He were not? Because we would rather not believe it. Why?

We saw a documentary on Nashville WNPT channel 8 about the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama and about the quilts they have been making for generations. The program was very interesting and informative, but the biggest thing about the thing was the love and faith that was communicated by the women.

I am filing this post under the category Work but it’s about love too. These women worked skillfully and creatively on these quilts but they didn’t really think so highly of their work until, through a sequence of events beyond their power, they and their quilts became famous.

There is a major museum show of their work, a major book and now the documentary. It is remarkable. It’s also more than remarkable how the love and thankfulness shines through. As I was watching I felt these women could be my mothers and sisters. Every woman interviewed displayed an inclusive relational attitude. It is also very apparent that the Christianity they espouse is deeply held and lived out.

I am posting this under my Work category but it is really just as much about love.

Here are some sites with information:
Quilts of Gee’s Bend
Auburn University Gee’s Bend Page

Some of my favorite flowers are resurrection lilies. We also can call them surprise lilies. This is not the first I have posted about them. See this story.

Anyway, this morning, much to my surprise, I saw them beginning to pop up in the yard. It is still early February after all. They are so little yet that I wouldn’t have noticed them except for the fact that Leslie had marked the places with rabbit things on metal stakes.

Here are some pictures:

 
I will keep you posted on their progress.

Here are more resurrection lilies from past years.

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Love is first, last and everywhere in between. Love is our business, our pleasure, our arts and sciences, our dream and reality. If we do not have enough love we usually look for more. If we think we have less love now than we did before we go looking for where we lost it.

Sometimes we get bitter and disillusioned. But disillusionment is not really about love; it is about our illusions of love. The bitterness is always about the illusions. But love is not an illusion; love is the reality. Illusions are images which draw on parts and pieces of reality but are put together in a distorted way. Love without illusions is always there but we don’t always see it.

God is love but we don’t always see Him.

What does it means to say that God is love? I don’t know exactly. Does it mean God is equal to love or love is equal to God? Does it mean God is full of love or love is full of God? I don’t know exactly.

I do know that love is more than we think it is, as God is more than we think He is.

Love is more important than we think it is. I think love is all-important. I think it is infinitely important. Once I heard Mark Gershmel sing a song called “Love is Everything.” It touched me deeply. I don’t even remember any of the words but that one phrase—that’s enough.