Saying For Today: What matters most is not what they said or did but that they loved us. That is the greatest blessing of all.
'Sanctuary'
Overlook, Back River, Georgetown Island, ME
We can each love truth while disagreeing with what that is. Our love of truth is love of truth, not our opinions about it. So, our passion for truth can unite us while we disagree on what it looks like. And love for each other, amid our divergent beliefs, can unite us. Indeed, the love of truth and the love of one another is the same love. The more I love truth, the more love I will have for others, including those who differ from me. And in loving them, I will want to understand why they differ with me; thereby, I can love them. Without a willingness to do this, how can we live together in peace? And how can I claim to love you and not want to understand you?
If you have problems accessing the video below, it can be viewed on the original site via the upper left vocalist-title...
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My late Uncle Edward was the adult Sunday School teacher and a deacon in our little church. I had much respect for him. He was a kind and gentle man. I was age 19 and had been preaching and serving as interim pastor for churches for several years. I was preparing to go to a two-year college for Christian ministry training, working toward an A.A. in Religion. That would ready me to go on to get a Bachelor's degree and maybe off to seminary.
I had not done well in high school; back then, we with attention-deficit were just left behind in our studies. The concept of attention-deficit disorder was unknown in my rural community. Pediatrician George Still first identified it in 1902: he said it is "an abnormal defect of moral control in children." I disagree that attention-deficit is a disorder; it is a different way of how the brain works. And when school is designed to teach students only one way, persons like me could - can - be left behind and seen as just not smart enough to make the grade. So, I needed to go to a junior college to prepare more for the four-year one - I had a lot of learning to do to make up for what I had missed in high school. And I do not think anyone would have predicted I would end up with two Master's degrees, a Philosophy doctorate, and certification in clinical chaplaincy in the decades to come.
I was alone in the church with my Uncle Edward. He had me sit down on the front pew. He sat in front of me. He gave me a serious man-to-man talk on the danger of education for a Christian minister. According to him, such training was a good thing; however, one could be misled by teachings not in accord with the Bible. In fact, the news around the family was one of my first cousins had attended the University of Georga and returned home an atheist. I knew, for some reason, he would never participate in the church worship. I was told teaching on evolution had derailed his faith. Anyway, I took my uncle's caution seriously, also thinking I would never be misled.
Well, I did come to vastly different thoughts about faith and life from school and educating myself. Learning how people think outside the small community and Baptist church of my upbringing has been an adventure I have cherished and still do. I am confident I did not abide by my uncle's warnings. I discovered an aspiration for truth I had never known before. Once my mind-heart opened to learn, even if it meant leading me from what I was raised to think, I could not turn away.
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Years ago, I wrote disparagingly about what Uncle Edward did and what others do in discouraging persons from openness to truth. Now, I see that meeting in the church in 1979 differently. Uncle Edward received only an 11th-grade education, was a farmer, lived in that little, rural community all his life, and he had never been exposed to the opportunities at learning I was to be blessed with. Now, I see my uncle showing how much he cared for me and how much he loved Christ also. I am thankful there was someone in my life who cared enough to speak to me the way he did that day. How sad to think of how many children and youth who do not have that blessing in their lives.
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Yes, many of us have had persons who have discouraged us in trying to love us. And they did love us in the only way they knew how - like we are, they were limited by factors they had no control over. And we can disagree with them while agreeing with their intent to care for us. So, I cherish that meeting with Uncle Edward, as I cherish others who, in their imperfect ways, have loved me and sought to guide me rightly. What matters most is not what they said or did but that they loved us. That is the greatest blessing of all.
And I would like to think my Uncle Edward, today, would be proud of how I dared see beyond what I had seen. I would hope he would see it took much courage to do so and how only the love of truth allowed it to happen, even as he, too, in his way loved truth and gave his life to it.
If one speaks, "I love you," she is saying, "I love you," not "I love you for you agree with me." True love is based not on what we think; it arises from what we are. Unity will not come in our agreement of mind but our joining in heart - heart-with-heart.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
*Quote of George Still from Edge Foundation, "A History of ADHD"; see https://edgefoundation.org/a-brief-history-of-adhd/ .
