Aging Spiritually: No Scarcity of Love
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
—
Jan and I recently enjoyed a week of vacation with our family at the beach outside of Charleston, SC. There is nothing like playing in the ocean with young grandchildren to take your mind off other concerns of life. One of the things that pleased us was the ease of our young (ages 4 and 7) grandsons to show affection to everyone around them. Love seems to come naturally to children who are nurtured in a loving home.
While I was away, I caught up on reading some daily meditations from Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation. (I encourage you to check out the website: Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org) ). The meditation for July 21 had me pondering the way that living by a spirit of love can change lives.
The meditation told the story of Rosemarie Freeney Harding, a spiritual leader in the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960s. Through her deep Mennonite faith, she and her husband opened their Atlanta home to create an interracial community of hospitality called Mennonite House. They provided a place of rest and refuge for those who were active in the struggle for racial reconciliation.
The meditation states, “Freeney Harding’s activism was inspired by her abiding and mystical experience of God’s love and justice. Rachel Harding recalls her mother’s vision:
There is no scarcity. There is no shortage. No lack of love,
of compassion, of joy in the world. There is enough.
There is more than enough.
Only fear and greed make us think otherwise.
No one need starve. There is enough land and enough food.
No one need die of thirst. There is enough water. No one
need live without mercy. There is no end to grace. And we
are all instruments of grace. The more we give it, the more
we share it, the more we use it, the more God makes. There
is no scarcity of love. There is plenty. And always more.
This is the universe my mother lived in.”1
“There is no scarcity of love.” Those words captured my imagination, leading me to ponder the abundant love which we all share. We are all instruments of God’s grace, sharing and receiving the abundance of love. That abundant love is a gift, given by God, shared through the way we live with one another.
When we share God’s abundant love with others, that love is multiplied, like the loaves and fishes Jesus shared on the hillside. Love only becomes scarce when we choose not to share with others. Scarcity or abundance – it’s our choice. God has provided more than enough, and has called us to choose to share God’s love with others.
-Greg Smith
1. Rachel E. Harding, “Daughter’s Précis,” foreword to Remnants, by Rosemarie Freeney Harding, [ix].
Practice
In what ways do you share God’s love with others? Writing in a journal, or on a piece of paper, make a list of names of people who have received God’s love through you in the past two weeks.
After you have listed their names, write about your actions of love and how God worked in their lives through your actions.
Then, consider how God worked in your life through your loving actions toward others.
Last, give thanks to God, for God’s abundant love working in and through you.
Greg Smith
Legacy Ministry for Older Adults