I've been getting a daily reflection from the Henri Nouwen Society for a few weeks now, and it's often well worth reading. Today's, though, was postively overwheleming. See what you think...
Doing Love
Often we speak about love as if it is a feeling. But if we
wait for a feeling of love before loving, we may never learn
to love well. The feeling of love is beautiful and
life-giving, but our loving cannot be based in that feeling.
To love is to think, speak, and act according to the
spiritual knowledge that we are infinitely loved by God and
called to make that love visible in this world.
Mostly we know what the loving thing to do is. When
we "do" love, even if others are not able to respond with
love, we will discover that our feelings catch up with our
acts.
This spoke loud and clear into my current context....If they'd trawled through every last word of his hunting for something labelled "f.a.o. K Fleming" they could not have done better. So I guess that's my cue to go and practise, I suppose!
4 comments:
Oh yes.... and for me too. See also the exchanges about plodding set off by Maggi (please can someone tell me how to do links in comments....!)
Thanks for the Nouwen Society link - definitely one to sign up for.
Thanks for sharing this, Henri Nouwen was a great man, his words are so wonderful.
Love as action and choice is the theme of the (few) wedding homilies I have written. Thanks for this beautiful quote!
That is so spot on... I also think it fits closely with the idea of covenant... I think one major problem with western society is that love is reduced to nice feelings rather than deep covenanted commitment...
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