How Wonderful That You Are!

A friend whom I had not seen for a while asked me a practical question when she approached me working with a colleague: "What do you need?" I responded, "Oh, some paper," since I didn't have paper. That wasn't my first thought, however. What I wanted to say, but couldn't find the words for, was "How could anyone want for anything when you are around?"

I would have embarrassed her had I said this, so I'm glad I didn't, but I recalled it when I read, from The Betrayal of Charity, Matthew Levering, (Baylor University Press, 2011), p. 143:

"Quoting Etienne Gilson's remark that 'the most marvelous of all things a being can do is to be,' Joseph Pieper attempts to describe the basis of love: 'For what the lover gazing upon his beloved says and means is not: How good that you are so (so clever, useful, capable, skillful), but: It's good that you are; how wonderful that you exist!'" [citing J. Pieper, Faith, Hope, Love, 170]

As much as I feel this way about my friend, the experience challenges me to cultivate the same attitude of gratitude toward all my "special others" -- my family, friends, neighbors, and even those I happen to meet in my life - all of whom I need to love more.

I thank God for the "special loves" in my life that reveal how Love embraces us, making us able to love, and I am challenged to love better those who merit more of my love. May I experience all who enter my life with the thought, "How wonderful that you are!"

I know the love to which I am called is not measured by my feelings of euphoria, but by kenosis and self-sacrifice. Love is not about me. To follow Jesus' command to love is the way of His cross, walked without or against emotion, sometimes in anguish. Yet there is also joy in trying to serve the Lord by loving others.

Listen to "You've Got a Friend" by Carole King.

Listen to "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler on the Roof.

Listen to "My Love is Warmer Than the Warmest Sunshine," by Petula Clark

Listen to "I Can't Stop Loving You," by Ray Charles.

Listen to "Dance Me to the End of Love," by Leonard Cohen.

Listen to "The End", by the Beatles