Loving What Is

I cannot change the world and I have no intentions of doing so. I can’t change the world, but I can change! So I don’t expect or ask the people of my community to change the world. I resist all invitations to change our city, to transform our town, to change our society. I always encourage us to work on ourselves. It is urgent! This at first might look like passivity.

At the same time, I feel it is my task to love what is, to love reality. I cannot live in a fantasy world of what could’ve been or should’ve been or what can be. I have determined to forsake fantasy and to love reality. I am convinced that this is where God is truly present. This is extremely challenging because my mind yearns to flee from the harsh realities that are presented to it, including those harsh realities that come in the form of other people. My mind yearns to build a fantasy world where it can pretend it is immune from all danger, weakness and ultimately death, and where it can exalt itself in a dream of invincibility and immortality. But I am pulled by reality to leave behind all my theories, dreams and heavenly theology and become grounded in this reality that I find myself in now.

If I recognize my own fear and frailty, then I can recognize the fear and frailty in others. And this is where true love, true compassion begins. And this is where the apparent passivity is transformed into action… the action of love. It is actually quite subversive and counter-cultural. This is why I think it is of utmost importance that Rothesay Vineyard be a safe place for this to happen. This would explain a great deal of why we are the way we are.