February 2011 Blog

Dear Family of Faith,
While cleaning off my desk at home recently, I ran across a letter from an old friend. He shared about what had happened in his life in the six years since we last saw each other. He went through homelessness, disease, and mental illness. At the end of the letter he left his email address and told me to write back sometime. I grieved when I re-read his letter because that “sometime” never came. You see, in the meantime I got word that he had died. The chance to reconnect with a guy that had few friends and many troubles was lost for good. It reminded me again, with sad regret, how fleeting life can be and how fleeting the chances of life can be.
A lot of us live under the assumption that we can do tomorrow what we don’t want to do today; yet tomorrow never comes. It reminds me of a sign on a seafood restaurant in Canton, Ohio, which reads, “Free Crab Tomorrow.” They never had to serve a single plate of free crab to anyone because tomorrow was always tomorrow.
If tomorrow is always tomorrow in our lives, then today is all we have, and we have to do what is important today. This is especially true in our relationships with the people that matter most to us. James lays it out forcefully in his letter (4:13-14): “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not ever know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” We don’t know anything about what tomorrow will bring, so we can’t assume that we can do or say what needs to be done or said tomorrow. We have only the present (which is the only place God dwells, too—in the eternal present). What does this mean for us? Carpe diem! Seize the day! Today is the day to be who you are; today is the day to do what needs to be done; today is the day to say what needs to be said;’ today is the day to choose what needs to be chosen.
In this month of February when love is on many people’s minds, it is time to love broadly and boldly. If, as Mother Teresa of Calcutta famously said, “loneliness is the greatest disease of humanity,” then love is the great antidote to the world’s greatest problem. Love takes many forms, from intimate relations to friendships to compassion. All are needed in our love-forsaken world. I challenge you to live just one day thinking to yourself as you meet the people of that day’s activities, “This person needs to be loved.” Whether it’s your partner or spouse, a child, someone at work, a friend of many years, or a stranger on the street, look at them and think, “This person needs to be loved.” Isn’t that exactly what Jesus did? If you see people in this way, you will surprise yourself at how easy it is to be helpful and kind, considerate and caring—the very marks of being Christian. If you undertake this ‘experiment,’ let me know what happens. Cast your love far so that all may find in you a reflection of the love of God. Love broadly!
So, also, love boldly! Don’t keep your love bottled up inside. Let it be what it is. Many of us are timid and hesitant to love because we have gotten “burned” in the past. We have loved those who didn’t love us in return or loved those who misunderstood our love. Don’t let those experiences keep you from loving again. Anybody who has ever “made it big” in the entertainment or business world has always lost a lot of time, money, and emotional capital before they ever succeeded. Risking is part of the gig, so to speak. Christian is our name; love is our game! I am continually amazed at how many people, men and women alike, look for the hugs I so freely give after worship. First-time visitors, complete strangers to me, open their arms when they see others hugging. Always show a little tenderness to others; either it will bring back a lot of good memories or it will create good memories to replace the painful memories of the past. Either way you become a blessing. Love holds and hugs, love dances and laughs, love cries and prays. Love does what makes another whole. And love let-loose in us gives us the freedom to be who and what we are. Love boldly!
Don’t lose the chance you have today to make a difference in our world. Love broadly and love boldly!
With affection from one lover to another,
Pastor Carlan