Sermon on the love of St Paul - 1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:13

 "But, brothers and sisters, when we were orphaned by being separated from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, did, again and again—but Satan blocked our way. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent
Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labours might have been in vain.

But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord. How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones."

Good Morning everyone,

When it comes to preach a sermon on a passage like this, I feel there is a special challenge, ironically because it is already so straightforward. If you have a passage with some complex theological ideas, or obscure language, or complicated parable, then that is challenging in a way, but it can give you something to get into, to take apart and explain. 

I don't think that's the case here, you don't need me to start talking about the original Greek and the subtle nuances of words. Sometimes things really are as simple as they appear. But still, I will try to add something of value, since in its simplicity, this passage reflects the heart of the Gospel, the simple virtues that give life to everything else. 

Sometimes people get the impression that Paul was a cold, theological figure; well not here. More than anything this passage spills over with his warm, affectionate love and concern for the Thessalonians. He writes like a proud parent, sometimes afraid for his spiritual children out on their own in the world, in other lines bursting with pride and happiness when he finds out they are well and persevering in their faith. 

In the previous chapter, Paul describes himself as a nursing mother caring for his children, a tender, intimate, feminine picture; reflecting our Lord Jesus himself, who described himself as a mother hen, eager to gather her chicks under her wings, if only they would let her.

Paul fusses, he fusses, as every parent has done at one time or another, especially when their children are far off. In the end, he fusses so badly he has to send Timothy to check that the Thessalonians are alright, and when Timothy returns with good news, Paul cannot contain himself, and so he has to write back to them, this very letter we are working through, to tell them how pleased he is, to encourage them further, to make sure they know of his longing to be with them, to share their troubles, to give them the benefit of his experience. 

But there are too many cities, and to each of them Paul wants to bring the good news of Jesus Christ. He's like a parent with children scattered all over the country and the world: does he go to Corinth to see a son, or to Philippi to catch up with a daughter, or to Galatia to spend time with the grandchildren, spiritually speaking. At at all the time he wants to carry on his ministry, spreading the good seed of the gospel in new ground. 

Paul wants to be honest with his spiritual children, he paints no dishonestly rosy pictures, but bears straight with them about the persecution and opposition he himself suffers, and they will suffer because they have turned from their formerly pagan or Jewish beliefs to cling to Christ. Paul knows that suffering; like Jesus, and the other Apostles, Paul doesn't know how to lead except from the front. He makes himself the most obvious and noisy target, and has suffered abuse, threats, imprisonment, beatings, and he counts it a price well paid, to bring people the good news of our Lord Jesus. 

Paul continues to work for his own living as well, in between preaching, teaching, travelling and suffering these persecutions. He does this to avoid being a burden on those communities he stays with, so also nobody can accuse him of preaching the Lord Jesus because he gets a living from it, so also that he is not dependant on anyone but is free to preach as his conscience and God directs him. But in other places in his letters he makes clear that he would be within his rights to ask for his food and lodging in return for his teaching. 

I believe he does this because he doesn't want to limit the ministry only to those able to carry on another job, if people are going to consistently dedicate themselves to preaching and pastoral care, then they deserve a living the same as anyone else. But I believe he makes this clear because he doesn't want people to get the impression what he's teaching and preaching about is worthless. The Good News of our Lord Jesus is supremely valuable, worth far more than food and board; worth more than everything we own. At times it calls on our time, at times our money, at times our very lives; Paul knows this, and he doesn't want anyone to think differently.

We often think of Paul as a theological figure, rather than a pastoral one, and that is in part because we often concentrate on the jewels of theology that Paul's letters contain. Remarkable passage in letters like Romans, Corinthians, Phillipians that are foundational to two thousand years or Christian thought and philosophy that have defined the Western World in so many ways, all based on grappling with the astonishing figure of Jesus, who changed Paul's life, and has changed my life, and countless other people today and in every century since. 

But when I sat down and read Paul's letters, not in fragments, but all the way through, like you would a book, one whole letter then another, then it struck me was just how pastoral they are, all of them. The theology is woven all the way through, but it is always immediately, intimately entwined with the pastoral; the most profound theological insights are always intensely practical, driving decision and action in the here and now.

And this is something you see so consistently across the earliest Christian writings. In the Gospels, Jesus reveals to us the nature of God, and the Kingdom of God, the meaning and purpose of life and how we must live it, and all these mind-blowing things through stories about the simplest of things: the sowing of seed, a wedding feast, a shepherd with his sheep, a woman who loses a coin, a merchant who sees a pearl, the most everyday and ordinary things caught up in the holiest of heights.

And that is as it should be. Sometimes in the modern world we can divide theology from everyday life, like there's these abstract logical puzzles about the nature of God, or whatever, the realm of theologians in ivory towers at universities; and then completely separate there's the problems and troubles of ordinary life. No. No. When I think of New Testament, I think of a book of profoundly practical wisdom; when I think of Paul, I think of a man who was never afraid to get his hands dirty, whose most profound theological reflections were attempts to answer the immediate, pastoral questions of the spiritual brothers and sisters he so dearly loved. 

One of Paul's most famous passages is 1 Corinthians 13 where in beautiful, lyrical words he explains the nature of love. It ends with the famous words, "And now abides faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." But these three virtues are not just mentioned in that famous passage from Corinthians, but together in Thessalonians, at the start in chapter 1, and then again at the end in Chapter 5, and they mentioned, albeit spread around, in this passage too. 

Clearly to Paul these were the defining, important virtues. But while in 1 Corinthians 13 he defines love in poetic but abstract terms, here he shows what faith, hope and love means in his intense concern for the Thessalonians, his hope they will have remained devoted to the teaching he brought them, his faith in the face of troubles and persecution. Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians 13 that these are the lifeblood of the gospel: "for God so loved the world that he sent his only son", and the Son, Jesus Christ, showed that love for us, he wept for us, he died for us, he longed to gather us in as a mother hen gathers her chicks, and now we must show that love to one another.

These virtues are simple, they are practical: we all know what faith, hope and love looks like, we live it everyday, for our children and families and friends, for our country, for our community, for ourselves. Paul is saying, let Christ inspire us and empower us to do these things even more. Let Christ's love fill us up to bursting, so we overflow with love for God and other people even more. Let the knowledge of what God has done for us, and faith in what God is doing with us, and hope for what God will do with us; let it burn away our remaining bitterness and suspicion and fear.

Let us gush with affection for one another, as Paul gushed over the Thessalonians. Let us consider every unhappiness in this church to be our own, let it niggle and annoy us to know that anyone here has a need, or a concern, or a fear, that goes unanswered. Of course, our love and concern should not be limited to people within these walls. Charity begins at home, or in this case, within our own church, but that should merely be the first step that radiates out and out until it rebuilds and recreates a better world for all. But to misquote the first letter of St John, if you cannot love your own family, or your own community who you see all the time, then how can you love the vast world beyond, who you rarely ever see? We can never do everything, but we can all do something, each time the opportunity appears.

Maybe you struggle to feel that love and concern for the people around you. After all, Paul wasn't British, he wasn't raised with the stiff-upper lip. Well, good news, because love isn't just a feeling, neither is faith, or hope. In fact, that is one of the great and important insights of Christianity. Love isn't a feeling, it's a doing. The same goes for faith and hope as well. Show love to the people around you, meditate on how much God loves them: because whoever they are and whatever they do, they're his precious children; and the feeling will eventually come, as far as the English are capable anyway. The same goes for faith. It doesn't mean believing without any doubts, it means placing our trust in Jesus, it means being faithful to Jesus, following his commands despite doubts and uncertainties that bombard us. And that is something we can all do in ways large and small. Hope too, comes in making the choice to take risks; risks in trusting in a person, in an idea, in greater communication and openness; taking a risk that things can be done, that things can be done better, that things can get better. The feelings follow eventually.

In so much of the external world and society, love is limited and conditional, available if we are useful or beautiful or charming. Well, let us reject all that. Let us love one another without borders or limits because God loves us, infinitely, eternally, without pausing or ceasing; and we trust that he sees truly and clearly where our vision in confused and dim. Let us discover what Paul discovered, that God pours out his love into us every day, the same for the greatest and the least. So let it fill us up, let it flow over onto other people, whoever they are. Let it make us soft and sentimental, but never stationary or static. Rather, like Paul, let it be the fuel powering our engine, to love with more passion, to serve with more dedication, and so to build the Kingdom of God on Earth, that alone endures beyond the changes of life and death, because it is built on God himself.

Amen.   

The Spectator - The Moral Inspiration of Tolkien’s Universe

Very grateful to The Spectator for publishing an essay of mine on the moral ideas that define Tolkien's

Middle Earth, and why accusations of racism massively miss the point.  

I talk about the way he approaches death, war, suffering, self-sacrifice, nobility and beauty, all with a remarkable nuance and subtlety, shaped by his personal war experiences and his profound Christian faith, that is sometimes not recognised.

The Moral Inspiration of Tolkien's Universe
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-moral-inspiration-of-tolkien-s-universe 

Sermon on Matthew 7:12 - The Golden Rule

“So everything you wish that others would do for you, do also for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

Approaching this sermon, I felt very challenged in two completely different ways. Firstly, it's such a short reading, only 20 words long. How to find enough to speak about from so few words of Scripture? But then straightaway I had the opposite problem. This verse is famously known as the Golden Rule, because it beautifully sums up the attitude that should define our morality and our spirituality. But it can be applied in so many different situations, how do you explain it in any way in only ten minutes.So right at the start my hands are both too empty and too full. I'm struck with a degree of humility, and fear and trembling as I approach this task.

I take comfort though from the fact this reflects life itself. The sheer bewildering vastness of life and its choices is, I imagine, enough to make us all feel a touch of fear and trembling sometimes. Especially in this modern world there seem to be so many opportunities and choices, and maybe it's just me, but I sometimes feel with so many choices, I'm just that more terrified I'm going to make the wrong one.

I work for a major, well-known corporation that shall remain anonymous. It's a great company, there's lots of opportunities, and they have this real focus on personal development. This is good, we all want to develop, but at times it is exhausting. If you're not careful you can feel like you're never good enough, you're up on the side of a mountain and you have to step up, and up, and just as soon as you become vaguely comfortable with where you are, you've got to climb a bit higher again, and so you've always got this slight sense of vertigo, like you might just fall off if you put a foot in the wrong place.

And it's not just work, it's social occasions, it's dealing with family, and friends; it's politics, it's the constant never-ending messy confusion of being alive. And the choices are endless, and some of them don't matter at all, but a lot of them do, even if just in a small way, and you can feel like at any moment you could make the wrong choice and screw up, maybe embarrass yourself, maybe miss some opportunity, maybe hurt someone you don't mean to hurt. 

So, what do you do?

I think, fundamentally, there are two types of approach. You can have a list of rules. You can have a list of rules about what you do in each type of situation. So, maybe the rule is "Always say yes to an opportunity", or it's "Don't steal" or it's "Always be polite". But in the complexity of life there will be times when these rules should not apply because they don't take account of the context of the situation we're in. And this will be true however many rules you have, because there will always be some situation that doesn't fit into the rules we already know.

The Law of the Old Testament was a system of rules, designed to cover almost every situation. The Rabbis added up all the 'do's and 'do not's in the Law of Moses and found there were 613 in total. 613! And the Rabbis added many more rules to the list, to create what they called 'a fence around the Law' to prevent anyone breaking the core commandments. They didn't do this to be a pain in the backside, they did it to try to create a comprehensive guide to life, that would allow people to walk in the right path without tripping and falling down. Orthodox Jews today still guide their lives by this code, and Islamic 'Sharia' Law is meant to be a similar theological guide for Muslims and Islamic society.

Our modern secular world seems to be trying to go down the same path too. Anyone who runs a business or a charity, or a school, or who just deals with the Government or the Local council, will know that the rules and bureaucracy seem to be multiplying year after year, sometimes it feels like, before your very eyes. Online as well, in any social media, people are creating an increasing and bewildering number of rules about what you’re allowed to say, and what opinions you’re allowed to hold, to avoid being sternly condemned by well-meaning busybodies. Once again the idea seems to be that if we shape the rules precisely enough, just right, it will be possible to exactly and clearly define what righteousness is.  

But what Jesus taught us is what we inevitably see in life, that this approach never fully works. There are too many choices in life, and people are too unique, and different, for any list of rules to always tell us what is the answer. And that's before you get the issue of people deliberately trying to subvert and get around the rules. However well designed any system of governance is, if people are out to make mischief, they will find a way to get around it and subvert it. You just have to look at the actions going on in parliament at the moment to see people on both sides trying to game the rules to get their way. People really struggle to believe this though. They always seem to think that if they phrase the rules just right, then they will be fool-proof, and then everything is simple. Well, I can only say the history of mankind is the history of the fools winning that one.

What is the alternative though?

The alternative is Jesus's teaching here in the Gospels, the alternative to the Letter of the Laws, is the Spirit and Grace of God; the alternative to and never-ending list of rules is just one - The Golden Rule. “So everything you wish that others would do for you, do also for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

But why is this so different? Isn't that just another rule?

No, because it does not dictate the answer to a specific situation, it gives us the key so we can understand and decide any situation for ourselves. It helps guide our thinking, but it requires us to think. That was what Jesus did again and again. That's why he taught in parables: because he wanted us to consider and learn. Think of the story of the Good Samaritan - Jesus tells this parable after a rich, young man comes and asks him first, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life", and then "Who is my neighbour?". Clearly this man just wants Jesus to give him the answer, maybe in some form of list.

Instead Jesus gives him a parable that he has to take and consider and apply anew in every situation. Jesus knows that no set of rules can be a replacement for a kind and loving heart. Yes, it matters to have the right rules in a society, or a workplace, or in ethics. Jesus says he has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfil it. And that can only be done by those who judge and think for themselves, but not people who judge and think in any random way, but people whose hearts are guided by loving the Lord God with all their mind and strength, and guided by loving their neighbour as themselves. Only when we take decisions guided by the Spirit of God, who is love, mercy, generosity and peace, rather than by the letter of the law, only then will we judge rightly. 

For this sermon I kind of wish it wasn't popularly known as the Golden Rule, because it's not a rule in the manner I've talked about. It's so different, it's not a law to follow, but a principle that can guide our thinking and our hearts. “So everything you wish that others would do for you, do also for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." 

What kind of principle is it?

The first thing to say, is to make sense of it we can't apply the Golden Rule in a manner that is too immediate and literal. Just because you like bananas doesn't mean the Golden Rule is telling you to give everyone a banana. And it's easy to think of ever sillier examples. We have to take a step back from that kind of narrowness, and think about it more at an emotional level, what is the way we would like other to approach us, and then let that guide us back into specific actions.  

And if we do that this Golden Principle opens up for us. It becomes one that leads us to think about ourselves and the weaknesses we feel and the challenges we face.  To think about ourselves and all the times and ways we wish we had a helping hand, wish we had someone to turn to. And then it guides us, not to dwell in that forever, but to take all our vulnerability and look to the person sitting next to us, or the person walking by us in the street, or the person opposite us on the bus, and to think about how they might be vulnerable and in need in the same way, and to devote ourselves to them.

Because it assumes that other people are like us. It tells me that I can know something about others, that I can know that they have complex, multiple needs, and motivations, and cares like me. And it tells me even more than this, it tells me I must act to do something about it. When Jesus was asked "Lord, who is my neighbour?" he told the story of the Good Samaritan, with the message that our neighbour is anyone in need, and we act like a neighbour when we step in and help them. And we know that we are in need, so we better believe our neighbour is also in need. And we better do something about it. This is the statement of our common humanity, not as a legal or theoretical assumption, but in the messy, practical reality of all the things and cares that make up our lives.

There is a related saying to the Golden Rule, it is sometimes called the Silver Rule - "Do not do anything to others, that you wouldn't want them to do to you". Did you catch the difference? - "Do not do anything to others, that you wouldn't want them to do to you". Now that is an important principle as well. I'd suggest we all keep it. But it is not as important as the Golden Rule. It is also more common. Many religious traditions have the Silver Rule, but Jesus takes the rare step of turning it into Gold. Silver means second place, and there’s nothing shameful about that, but Gold means first. Why? Gold has always been considered more precious, more beautiful. Gold is always valuable, Silver tarnishes, but Gold keeps its shine. 

"Do not do anything to others, that you wouldn't want them to do to you". The difference is this - You can keep that principle by doing nothing. And that is why it would never be enough. The Good News of Jesus Christ is that the work has begun and is ongoing of creating a New Heaven and a New Earth, the Kingdom of Heaven, and that means standing up and acting. Maybe in small ways, maybe in large ways, and with the Grace and Spirit of God.

Just before this verse in Matthew 7:7 we have another famous reading, Jesus says “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you". Ask! Seek! Knock! And today, Do!

If we think about it, we all know how we'd like to be treated. We all want to people to be considerate, to pay attention to us, and not leave us abandoned, to approach us as unique individuals, to extend a helping hand, to appreciate us for who we are, to stick by us despite our flaws and errors, we want people to never condemn us on the basis of some stereotype or assumption. In other words, we want to be approached as an individual person who needs understanding, rather than as an object to be fit into some rigid structure of laws or assumptions. By no coincidence these are all the ways God's Love see us, and the ways his forgiveness approaches us. And in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus makes it clear that, however many rules and laws we have, we will never have the good world we want to see until we approach everyone around us with that same Grace, that we would want for ourselves.     

Amen.

An Advent and Christmas Reflection

I have a strong dislike of planning for Christmas and hearing Christmas songs before December. I have even been compared to Ebenezer Scrooge. But this isn’t because I hate Christmas, in fact I love Christmas and I also love Advent. The four weeks leading up to Christmas is my favourite period of the Christian Year: the New Year of the church, four Sundays before Christmas, begins a period of reflection, of watching, of waiting, of re-reading the prophecies of God’s promises, of quietly searching for the light in the darkness that can seem to be all around us.

But the preparation for Christmas I see in the society around me troubles me more each year. I see people place a lot of hope in things that don’t get them what they want. Christmas seems to start at the beginning of November and finish before Christmas Day is over. I’ve seen people open piles of presents on Christmas day only to discard them to rush to the Boxing Day sales. As many as eight million people in this country will start January in debt because of Christmas. People eat and drink far more than is good for them, and put up more and more decorations each year, searching for the perfect picture for Instagram. Others place their hope in their jobs and careers, working for longer than they need to. There seems to be little space for Advent and even for the following eleven days of Christmas. Long before the joy of Epiphany much of the world has moved on. Parliament spent Advent in uproar over Brexit, and there has been weekend after weekend of rioting in Paris, it seems many people have put their hope in power and politicians and been disappointed.

As Christians, we are hopefully less vulnerable to the worst excesses of ‘secular Christmas’ and putting our hope in the wrong places. But we still rush around, cooking, cleaning, decorating, wrapping, baking, and staying up half the night trying to create a perfect day. I’ve seen people rush around organising so many church services and singing so many Carols that they feel a disappointment when it is over, saying they did not really experience Christmas at all. The comfort that we need in the midst of pain and grief and suffering does not lie in the things around us in this world. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” prophesied Isaiah (9:2) seven hundred years before Jesus was born.

Christmas comes not only to the rich and well organised; it is not just for young children, or for people who already know Jesus. It comes, to the lowly and the poor. To the young Mary and Joseph, and the outcast shepherds, as well as the learned wise men, and the elderly Simeon and Anna in the temple. It comes to those like Zechariah and Elizabeth who thought their time may be past, and to a young couple in an occupied country forced to flee the persecution of Herod. It comes to John the Baptist in the wilderness and to an Innkeeper in the crowded town of Bethlehem. The Joy, Awe, Wonder, Peace and Hope of Christmas comes to all those willing to follow the star and listen to the angels - to all those who make space for the Baby who was named Jesus, who is Immanuel, God-With-Us.

The coming of the Messiah is the fulfilment of God’s promises, the proof that he has not forgotten his people and the embodiment of our Salvation. It is not a glittery, shiny, empty promise. Our mighty God with overwhelming power comes to save us as a tiny helpless baby – rejecting the worship of power, riches, control, strength and dominance - born into danger and poverty in a Manger. It is something we all need to experience every year afresh, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. Christmas gives us an ultimate hope for the future too - as we wait this Advent; we work for the growth of God's Kingdom of hope, faith and love, and we wait for Jesus to come again in Glory.

So that brings me to the challenge of this devotion: what are you going to NOT do this Christmas? How will you remind yourself of God’s promises, and make room for Jesus, God with us?

Stories of Resistance to the Holocaust

Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazi German state murdered 5.5 - 6 million Jews in occupied Europe, as well as another five million gentiles by the same methods of mass gassing, extermination through labour, starvation and mass shooting. This was itself only part of the 30-40 million killed in the European section of the 2nd World War. Many Jews fought and resisted by every means possible, but the Jews of Europe were never alone in their struggle. In the darkest night the light shines out the brightest, and in every country in Europe there were individuals and organisations who risked their lives to save their Jewish brothers and sisters. They were a scattered and spontaneous army of rescuers and resistors, though most fought without violence. In the worst period of human history they produced some of humanity's most noble heroism.

It feels almost wrong to talk too much about resistance to the Holocaust, as though doing so could give the impression the Holocaust 'wasn't so bad after all'. But it is also wrong to just say the rescuers failed because millions still died. They saved hundreds of thousands of lives, they saved all they could. But this resistance was horribly outnumbered and outgunned, facing political and military power they could not match, and divided and thinly scattered over an entire continent. Both Jews and non-Jews struggled to save lives during the Holocaust. This article focuses on the non-Jews, who could have stood aside, but chose to put themselves at risk to save lives. It would take a whole other article to begin to describe the remarkable Jewish struggle for survival against the darkness engulfing them.

Yad Vashem, the official Israeli museum for the Holocaust operates a program to recognise 'Righteous Among the Nations', non-Jews who risked their lives during the War to save Jewish lives. They have so far officially recognised over 26,100 people from 51 countries after submission of applications and evidence. This number is obviously less than the true number, even of those who directly risked their lives, but nobody can accurately say by how much. Certainly many times this must have been involved in rescuing, sheltering, protesting, or just remaining silent about hidden Jews at grave risk of Nazi reprisal, whilst constantly overcoming the shortages, poverty and want endured by almost all citizens of the occupied countries. And many heroes were caught and killed during the war, with no-one then left to testify to their resistance later.

Every Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27th, I feel the stories of those who risked everything to save lives should be better known. Oskar Schindler, is perhaps the only name of a rescuer that will be immediately familiar to most people, and yet he was one of tens of thousands. For years I've been put off by the sheer complexity of trying. Even to give a thin, representative sample of stories would take many pages, and anything else risks giving an inaccurate impression. But I feel it better to share some stories, and hope it encourages you to investigate further yourself. So here I give just a few examples of the incredible courage of both whole countries, towns and villages, and remarkable individuals, taken from Poland, the country with the most recognised Righteous Gentiles. These examples are deliberately fragmentary, even so this makes for a long article. I implore you to read further on your own, explore the links in this article or on Wikipedia's section on Holocaust rescuers, or the wonderful website for Yad Vashem itself.

Resistance took many forms, both Jewish and Gentile, collective and individual, from whole countries to single individuals. It defies easy categorisation, due to the sheer breadth of experiences that made up the genocide. The Holocaust is unique among genocides in the sheer diversity of the area and people who were destroyed, united only by all being of Jewish ancestry. It affected European countries from France to Russia, and Greece to Norway. Its victims differed in language, nationality, appearance, politics, social integration, wealth, and religion. It destroyed poor, isolated, religious communities in rural, Ukrainian villages, and integrated, secularised, wealthy individuals in Dutch cities. It killed followers of Orthodox and Reform Judaism, Christians, and secular, non-religious people. Victims were stripped from every European community and equally the scattered resistance came from every corner and circumstance in Europe.

Amidst the general darkness a few whole countries saved almost all their Jews. Bulgaria was a Nazi ally, but when the Germans demanded Bulgaria deport its Jewish population to occupied Poland a campaign by the Orthodox Church, leading writers and intellectuals and the Royal Family forced the government to refuse the order. Bishop Kiril of Plovdiv reportedly stood on the tracks in front of the transport train in Plovdiv himself to stop it from starting the journey to the concentration camps. Bulgaria was lucky in that it was small and distant, and so unlike Hungary or Romania, attempts to refuse the deportation of their Jews were not met with immediate occupation by German troops. All Bulgaria's 50,000 Jewish citizens survived.

In Denmark more than 90% of the small Jewish population, around 8,000 people, was successfully spirited away to neutral Sweden by the Danish resistance. After the Germans threatened deportations the Resistance, with the collusion of some in the government, organised to move thousands through a series of hiding places to distant north-east fishing ports, and then across the sea to safety in Sweden. The Nazis occupied Denmark in 1940 without firing a short, in theory to 'protect' it from Allied aggression. The result was the Danish government was left largely intact, rather than being replaced by Nazi or collaborationist fascist officials. This combined with the strong sense of shared national identity and the deep historical integration of the Jewish community into Danish society, to encourage the successful effort to save them.

Albania was the only country in occupied Europe to end the war with more Jews than it started. From some 300 before the war there were around 1800 Jews in the country by the war's end. Jews in Albania were protected by the fact the country fell under Italian rather than German occupation until late 1943, and that the Albanian and Yugoslav partisans liberated much of the area by late 1944. Meanwhile many hundreds were hidden in remote mountain villages under strict local customs of hospitality dating back centuries.

In other countries scattered across Europe whole communities rallied to refuse Nazi demands for the deportation of their Jewish citizens. In France the Protestant town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon worked as one, under the leadership of its local church minister, to shelter and protect over a thousand Jews. They were housed in homes throughout the town, fed, and hidden in the forests nearby whenever German soldiers came searching. Local people continued to protest the persecution of the Jews in open defiance of the authorities, once handing a petition opposing the deportations directly to a Vichy minister. Townspeople were arrested and murdered in the concentration camps, including the Church Minister's cousin, Daniel Trocmé, and his children.

In the Netherlands the small village of Nieuwlande came together to agree that every house and family would hide at least one Jew, binding the whole population of the village to a common effort and reducing the risk of any traitor giving them away. Arnold Douwes, the son of the village's Reformed Church pastor worked tirelessly through the war years, encouraging villagers to hide Jews on the run from the Nazis and support them with food, official documents and money, as far as they possibly could, saving around three hundred lives.

In Greece, the island of Zakynthos, refused to hand over its Jews for deportation. In 1944 Mayor Loukas Karrer was ordered at gunpoint to hand over a list of Jews residing on the island. The list, presented to the Germans by the island's Bishop Chrysostomos, contained only two names: the Mayor and the Bishop. The Bishop told the Germans, “Here are your Jews. If you choose to deport the Jews of Zakynthos, you must also take me, and I will share their fate.” Meanwhile all the Jews of the island were safely hidden in mountain villages. The Germans backed down and not one of the 275 Jews living on the island were lost. After the war in 1953 the island was struck by a terrible earthquake that destroyed almost every structure. The first boat to arrive with aid was from Israel, with a message that read, “The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor or their beloved Bishop and what they did for us.”

Poland has the highest number of recognised 'Righteous Gentiles'. Over 6,600 gentile Poles have received this award from Yad Vashem for risking their lives to save Jews. Poland was the country occupied longest by the Nazis, with the largest Jewish population, and both the most ferocious implementation of the Holocaust and the harshest regime of occupation for gentile Poles. Three million Jewish Poles and three million gentile Poles were killed during the war, and the punishment for offering any aid to Jews, even selling food or giving a lift in a vehicle, was the immediate death of the rescuer and their entire family. Nonetheless 50,000-100,000 Polish Jews were aided by Catholic Poles and it is estimated that each person received help in one form or another from at least several people, if not many more. Władysław Szpilman, Polish musician and author of The Pianist, on which the film of the same title was based, identified no fewer than 30 Poles who helped him survive the War.

Zegota was a branch of the Polish underground government dedicated to helping Jews. A joint

enterprise of Catholic activists and Jewish organisations, it provided money, food and hiding places to more than nine thousand Jews hiding with gentile Poles. Irena Sendler headed the Zegota children's section responsible for smuggling Jewish children out of the ghetto and placing them with families, orphanages and Catholic convents. Facing the most extreme danger her group of 30 volunteers physically smuggled 2,500 children out of the Warsaw ghetto however they could, in ambulances, prams, packages and suitcases. She buried jars with the children's information in the hope they could be reconnected with their families after the war. In 1943 she was even arrested by the Gestapo, tortured and sentenced to death, but luckily escaped and continued her work. After the war she was arrested again by the Communists along with many members of Zegota, imprisoned, interrogated and tortured but eventually released.

Rescuing people involved huge personal ingenuity, quick thinking and sacrifice. Eugeniusz Lazowski was a medical doctor who saved thousands by generating a fake typhus epidemic in eight villages. He discovered that injecting someone with dead typhus bacteria would generate a positive typhus result on a test without harming the person. He injected enough people to persuade the Germans to quarantine an 'infected' area covering several towns rather than risk a widespread typhus outbreak, thus saving several thousand people from being deported to the death camps. Irena Gut was a nurse, she was employed a housekeeper for a German Major and hid twelve Jews in the basement of the house, where every day they emerged to help her clean the place. After several months she was discovered by the Major but struck an agreement to become his mistress for the rest of the War in return for his silence, thus saving the twelve lives. Jan Zabinski was the director of Warsaw's Zoo before the War. All the animals had been killed during and shortly after the Nazi bombardment and occupation of Warsaw so the Zoo with its grounds was deserted. Taking advantage of this with the help of his wife Antonina he temporarily hid hundreds of Jews in abandoned animal cages, supplying them with food and money, before Zegota could smuggle them to more permanent hiding places. He also hid two dozen people through the War within the grounds of his own house in the Zoo.

In outlying towns and villages it was sometimes possible to hide whole families on farms and estates. Franciszek and Magdalena Banasiewicz constructed a bunker underneath their farm where they eventually gathered and hid fifteen people for over three years. Once one of their rescuees was caught by the Germans, but they managed to bribe the guard to release him and he escaped back to hide on the farm. Many others hid Jews in a similar way, but this was astonishingly dangerous. In a nearby village to the Banasiewicz's a farmer called Kurpiel was caught sheltering 27 Jews and killed with his entire family and all their fugitives. In another nearby town over 500 Poles were killed, in that town alone during the war, for attempting to help the Jewish population.

I could go on for days. To even try to discuss this topic without mentioning the heroism and tragic end of Witold Pilecki, one of my personal heroes, seems dishonourable, but this article is long enough already. I encourage you to find out about him for yourselves. I want to briefly consider one final question though: Just how many people were involved with resistance and rescue across Europe? As I said, Yad Vashem credits over 26,000 people as proven Righteous Gentiles, those who directly risked their lives to save Jews. It recognises that this is a dramatic under-estimate. Even within this list the hundreds of people involved in the Danish resistance are listed as one entry, as per their own request. In Poland over 50,000 Jews were saved, and estimates suggest each would've been helped by multiple people during the course of the war, but there are only 6,600 recognised Righteous.

700 of Poland's recognised Righteous Gentiles were killed during the war for their efforts, but many estimates put the total number of Poles killed for aiding Jews in the thousands. Italy, for example, has only 700 Righteous recorded by Yad Vashem, but in Rome alone over 4,500 Jews were hidden almost overnight when deportation was threatened in 1943, largely in Church buildings and institutions, and tens of thousands more were protected around Italy. The true figure of rescuers must be many times higher. While there were some mass rescues, like Oscar Schindler and a few others effectively saving a thousand lives, in a great number of other cases such as in Poland or Italy, it would have taken many people to protect and hide only a few Jews. Other groups are not eligible for Righteous Gentile status, because although they campaigned against the Holocaust they did not directly aid specific Jews, but were involved in broader resistance, like the general strike in Amsterdam against the treatment of Jews, or reading out a declaration in every church in that same city protesting the treatment of Jews.

A true reckoning cannot be accurately calculated or even estimated without a huge further amount of painstaking historical work.  But I think it highly likely that at least a hundred thousand people met the criteria of Yad Vashem. And many times that number, hundreds of thousands at least, were directly involved in hiding, feeding, transporting, or otherwise assisting Jews, and in actively protesting the Holocaust under the threat of deadly reprisal and amidst all the other dangers of the War. If anything these guesses may still be conservative, across Europe the number of people in the second category could easily pass over a million. Their example deserves to be remembered for its own sake, but also to remind us that even in the darkest times opposition to evil is possible in very many ways.        

Christmas & Family

Merry Christmas! (I know this is a bit late.  But my excuse is it is still within the 12 days of Christmas. Just.  And hence still technically Christmas. Oh, and happy Epiphany as well.)

Christmas is the great stereotypical time to spend time with your family. I am lucky that my family have always got on well together without much stress. I've always enjoyed Christmas get togethers, as much now I'm an adult as when I was little. For some people Christmas and other family occasions are not relaxing, to say the least, and that is very sad.  It is a rupturing of what family means at a time dedicated to a uniquely unique family.

Thanks to the good works of a friend whenever I think about what family means I will always think of a line from a certain Disney Film. "Ohana" in Hawaiian, "means family, and family means no-one gets left behind". Family means a commitment to one another -to care, to sacrifice, to have patience and compassion- to not give up on one another because there is a responsibility that cannot be put aside. The difference between Family and other relationships is that Family is a bond you're not allowed to give up on. Family may annoy you, they may irritate you, there certainly may be times you don't like them, but if they're family you're stuck with them. And so you do whatever you can to get along, to mend relationships and get to a situation where you can enjoy your time together because you are stuck together. This is a type of Love. Love always means commitment, of a type. A commitment you can't walk away from.  It  also means a whole lot more. It's true that you don't always even like the ones you love, sometimes you can even hate them too.

Family is a commitment. A commitment that we don't necessarily choose.  That usually means blood. The most common basis for that commitment and relation is a blood relation. The saying is "you choose your friends but your family you're stuck with". The nuclear and extended family are the historical basis of human society, the glue that holds society together, that cares for children, cares for people in their old age, and makes sure that almost everyone has someone who is obliged to care about what happens to them. It is the environment in which we are formed, and the original and most essential human social bond and organisation. It is not surprising our wider social, moral and religious ideas are widely constructed by expanding analogy to it.  Blood family bears the advantage that we share experiences and genetics, meaning we have a good chance of being quite like each other and having some sympathy for one another. Sadly it doesn't always work, but it is at least a start.

Family isn't just blood. The rituals by which we add to blood family have always been the most serious in human society. Marriage has always been considered so important because it means two people committing to becoming family to one another, and the traditional language surrounding marriage borrows overwhelmingly from our understanding of what family means. Adoption is another traditional means of grafting onto family, and the issues about the blood family, adopted family and identity of the person are so deep because family bond is crucial to our identity.

In the modern day nuclear families have become more complicated. In addition to the traditional archetype of husband, wife, children some families have single parents, unmarried parents, divorced parents, sometimes with new partners and step-children. A lady I know spends Christmas with her mother, step-dad, step-dad's ex-wife and step-dad's ex-wife's new partner and various respective children. Now these families may be as happy or unhappy as traditional family arrangements, but certainly they introduce complications that must be overcome because of their differences from the standard archetype introduces difficulty in defining who family is, and who bears the responsibility that brings.

Family does not just mean blood family, not even with all its various grafting and extensions through rituals like marriage and adoption.  There is also the family of choice. The families we make. The people we informally adopt as family throughout our lives. Often, and especially in the hectic modern world, we may find ourselves away from our blood family and unable to draw directly on the network of love, support and familiarity they offer. We may not even have a family that offers that. But people have the most wonderful capacity to build entirely new families for ourselves by adopting people as family and extending that bond of support and commitment. Unlike blood family these families carry no legal sanction or recognition, and are often not even explicitly stated, though those involved generally understand.  They are voluntary, but all the more wonderful for that, being a responsibility we choose and build for ourselves, rather than one merely given at birth. They may come about through an individual act of generosity, through some shared extreme experience, shared ideological or social association or just the enduring commitment of deep friendship. In their best moments they may be as permanent as blood family.  But even when they are more temporary they are defined by a depth of commitment and responsibility, which goes beyond whether you find a person useful in this or that particular moment. They provide support, rest,  belonging, understanding, and home. They give us people who will always care, always listen, always try to help, always be available (if at all possible), always say yes (unless there is a damn good reason to say otherwise).  And they are crucial to surviving in a difficult and complicated world cut off from the families we grow up in, and without them we will struggle, sometimes not even knowing the reason why.

These families we choose for ourselves often mirror blood family in many ways.  Someone is like a brother or sister, or even Mum or Dad to us. These families are still often based around people living together, through the way this throws people so closely together. These families of adoption are often more alike our blood family than we are prepared to admit. They are not entirely random or free. We are thrown together with certain people, with whom we may choose to build that bond or not. But generally who we come across is dictated by circumstances we do not control. On the other hand, really, all family is the family we choose.  Blood provides a strong motivation, and a social expectation, that we will treat certain people as family, but really nothing can force us to hold and to honour that commitment of compassion and respect, of Love and devotion, that defines people as family.  In the end that is a choice and a decision we make and hold to, whether consciously or not.  Our society is sadly littered with examples where people have not honoured that commitment, even to those who do share close relation, and the damage and hurt this causes can extend over entire lives.

Family being a choice we make brings me back to Christmas, where we traditionally gather as families, and hopefully remember that most special family of the Nativity. Because the Nativity very much was a Family of choice, of adoption, with more in common, in many ways, with the messy, modern arrangements of so many families today, than the neatness of the traditional archetype.  There was no blood between Mary and Joseph, only a previous commitment he did not have to honour, given the circumstances, and a duty of kindness and compassion. There was no blood between Joseph and the baby he adopted as family and raised as his own, only a choice that was thrust upon him to make that commitment for the rest of his life. There was blood between Jesus and Mary, but not the assurance the baby was shared and accepted by a human father, only the choice to accept a responsibility, and bear the distance of knowing the baby she bore was not just her son, but had a destiny and responsibility that would take him beyond her and from her as well. This was a family that was barely formed before it was forced into the life of political and religious refugees, forced to flee to a alien country, having given birth in difficult conditions far from family and home.

Nativity means a family that only existed thanks to the choice Mary and Joseph made in the strangest of circumstances, as they said Yes to the chance God had sent them, and the Love and commitment they put into making that family a reality from then on. The amazing things about the Nativity are not just the miracle of God become Man, but also that in placing himself physically in the hands of a young peasant girl and her uncertain fiance in a dirty, poor stable, God took on our aching vulnerability. Putting himself utterly in the hands of human weakness and fragility and relying on the choices they made. The fact the family of the Nativity was this uncertain, this mixed family of choice and adoption just increases the vulnerability and contingency around the coming of God into the world in flesh.  God took on not only the weakness of human flesh, and the danger of sinister human political machinations, but also the fragility of human emotions and the decision taken to build a family outside usual expectations. That God would show that trust in human nature and rely so utterly on the choices individual humans made, that is a miraculous affirmation of the human emotion & spirit, in the same way that God growing in human flesh is miraculous affirmation of the physical world we dwell in.

The most emotional illustration of this vulnerability of the Nativity in that distant stable that I have ever experienced came in an email I received on November 25th a few years ago. At the time I was a volunteer at a Night-shelter for homeless refugees in north Coventry. Refugees and asylum seekers generally can't access homeless shelters because these are funded by government welfare and refugees and asylum seekers can't access welfare. Usually without family or connections in the places they end up in, struggling with physical or emotional trauma, and without the legal right to seek work or access welfare, they often end up homeless. A lady called Penny ran a shelter in a previously abandoned North Coventry terrace house, providing a safe, dry, warm place to sleep and a free dinner and breakfast each day for homeless refugees and asylum seekers. The place ran on a shoestring and donations of food, and the support of volunteers from the local community and the University, where I got involved.  Volunteers were responsible for looking after the place over the evening, sleeping there overnight, making sure nothing went wrong, getting people up, serving breakfast and getting people out at the right time. It was pretty unpleasant throwing people out at 8 am, when it was cold and raining and you knew they had nowhere to go all day but wander round outside, but it was sadly necessary to keep the place running. The refugees were from Eritrea, Congo, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo and various countries across Africa.  They were mostly Male with the occasional woman, a woman usually from somewhere in Africa, and usually the most quiet, usually the most scarred by what they had experienced. In the many dirty conflicts across the world women are generally most vulnerable. Penny sent out a few emails every month to ask for volunteers and arrange a rota. One year in November in the email to prepare the next rota Penny left a note.

"Hi everyone,
   
I hope you are all have a happy festive season, Christmas, new year, winter solstice. Here is the rota for January. Please can you arrange a swap if there is a problem with the date. PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS ROTA, it saves me making lots of phone calls. If you know anyone else who would like to volunteer, I am doing some training for new people on Wednesday 17th Jan at 6.30pm. Please ask them to let me know they are coming.
   
And to finish on a Christmas note, we currently have a woman who has just arrived from Nigeria staying the week-end before she goes to
claim asylum in Croydon on Monday. Her name is Mary and she is 8 months pregnant. That's true.
  
best wishes to you all,
Penny"

What world was that baby born into? And what opportunity did the world offer that baby and its mother: Single, far from home, refugee, homeless, destitute? How similar to that world Jesus was born into in a stable far from home. But there is one crucial way that it it is a different world, and that is the fact that Jesus was born into our world two thousand years ago. Because that Nativity wasn't just the birth of one family of adoption of a teenage peasant girl, her fiance and the unique baby that God had given to them. Nativity also means that we all, all humanity, become family to God by adoption in its deepest sense. Through his birth and then life, death and resurrection that came from it he covered us over with his Holiness, washed away our Sins and folded us in with his Holy Spirit.  We became children by adoption, with God as our Father, and a relationship of the enduring Love and consistent commitment that defines family. We become family to one another, us to God & God to us, and brothers and sisters in Christ with the duty and responsibility to one another that comes with that.

The story of the world has been the gradual moral expansion of Love from family to clan, tribe, nation eventually to theoretically encompass all mankind, and even our duty to other species and the environment. Moral commands like 'Do not murder' have been present across all forms of human society. But they have always historically been limited within certain communities, while those outside, whether of a different nation or race or religion, could be killed without moral sanction. Most originally hunter-gatherer communities would have lived in separated extended families, each with their own hunting and gathering lands. Slowly those standards were applied more widely, as human society expanded from family to clan to tribe to people (the words for tribe and clan themselves are literally derived from words for family) and even more expanded human societies: nations, countries, Empires have historically been scattered with symbolic references to family.

The expansion of moral prescriptions (like do not kill), the commitment of Love, and the idea of family, from blood family to clan, tribe, nation and then the whole world, have gone hand in hand.  The development of the great Universal Empires of the ancient world, Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese, Indian brought the first idea of the whole world as one universal community. But although these communities expanded the idea of  'Do not Murder' they were only shadows of the true fulfilment of what family should mean. They had negative moral boundaries on behaviour, like forbidding killing or stealing, but without an idea of filling in the positive commitment of family.

But it was the Good News of Jesus Christ that for the first time transformed the idea of a global community based on law and order into that of a Family based on love and commitment. The Gospel tells us to love our neighbour, and tells us our neighbour must be whoever is in need; it tells us to love our enemies, as well as those who do us good.  It tells us to give, to lend, go the extra mile and turn the other cheek, without boundary or restriction and practice radical forgiveness, forgiving the seventy times seven times that any family will tell you is necessary when imperfect people are glued inseparably together and know they have to make things work. We are called to love one another as God has loved us, as a father to a child, and to love one another as Brother and sister and spread that message and community to the whole world, with the simple practical acts of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving thirsty people a drink; that go with that radical message, as they must do for any family to be real. We are called to build a worldwide community, Church, that should be a well of support in the same manner as those families we choose. This is nothing less than the expansion of our notion of Family, in its true meaning of a choice of Love and continuous commitment, to the whole world, to all of creation, to reflect the Love God has for us all and the duty we all have for each other. It is building a complete world where nobody gets left behind, and all are looked out for and cared for, because we each take it as our positive commitment to do so. So that child born in north Coventry in Winter to a refugee mother would also have a family.

And this is not just an ideal; it is a promise through God's Spirit and power.  Sometimes it may seem distant and unimaginable, but through the power of God's spirit, the birth of God as man as Jesus Christ, the family of adoption of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the Good News of radical Love that Jesus lived and taught it becomes not just a possibility but an eventual certainty.  God's Holy Spirit gives us the power to extend Love to all humanity, despite our deep personal fallibility; the instruction of what that means in our individual lives and choices; and a vision of what that could achieve if we  make the choice and commitment to join that family the same way Mary and Joseph did in Nazareth a long time ago.  

And that is what, for me, family means and Christmas means.  Through gathering together and sharing gifts and hospitality, the tokens of the love, commitment and patience, the fundamental meaning of family; we celebrate the bonds that give meaning to our lives, through the choices we make whether due to blood or experiences we have shared. We remember the unique family of the Nativity, forged in the choice of Mary and Joseph, and the wonderful birth of the Christ-child; and we remember how that birth  means we are all adopted as family of God, children of God and brother and sister to Christ and one another, if we choose to make that commitment. And through God's power we have the chance and duty to make that bond real for all mankind, building a complete family of all mankind where no-one is forgotten or left behind.

Something worth remembering.

Love Is . . .

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Love is patient; Love is kind;  Love does not Envy; Love does not boast; Love is not arrogant; Love is not rude. Love does not insist on having its own way; Love does not get irritable; Love does not resent; Love does not rejoice in evil; Rather Love rejoices in Truth. Love bears all things; Love believes all things; Love hopes all things; And Love endures all things.  Love never ends.

Love is the meaning and purpose of a human life.  Everything else is a tool, a method, a stalling tactic.  We eat so that we may have strength, we breath so life goes on, we study so we know more so we can achieve more, but all these are merely means to the end of having the chance, the opportunity, the possibility to Love; whether we love our life itself, the Universe we inhabit, the joys and wonders we experience, or discover, or learn to understand, the other unique human beings we meet or the God Almighty who gave us all this.  And gave us all this to Love.

But what is Love?  St Paul gives us a description that takes the breath away, that stills the voice, that rests perfect.  But it is a list of features, rather than an essential definition. Love comes in many different forms, we can love another human being , as a friend, as a lover, as family; or we can love a piece of beauty or music or calm or expression, or we can love a sensation, like the taste of chocolate chip ice-cream, or we can love a subject and be driven to learn more, understand more, know more of the thing we love.  Or most mysterious of all we can Love God, who we can never clearly see, or truly know, but people like me feel utterly drawn to none-the-less.

All these Loves are different, as many and diverse as there are different individual possible objects of Love.  But still they are all very much the same.  The Greeks famously had three different common words for what we simply call Love.  And it is important to recognise how Loves can be different.  But also to realise that they all have so much in common.  Though one may be a thing of little importance, whereas another can define an entire life, or shake the whole world.

All Love has so much in common, though still each is utterly unique, to the person loving and the being loved.  What it always is is the utterly deep appreciation of the value of the thing loved.  This leads to care, this leads to kindness, this leads to constant devotion, this leads to boundless optimism.

Love is not just a feeling and Love is not just a commitment. In fact if it is any one thing it is a realisation. But really it is all these things and more.  It is utterly unique and it is totally universal. It can involve your whole being; body, mind, heart, and soul. And Love binds you together as one being, just as it binds you tightly to the thing you Love.

Love is revelation, Love is the one thing that is truly transcendent; Love is true prophecy because in Love the person sees utterly through the skin of things, through the ordinary everydayness of the world, into the Truth that lies hidden just out of ordinary reach. For in Love a person sees through the stuff that makes up the world and catches of glimpse of what lies beneath it: the endless, bottomless well of value, the beauty, the wonder, the perfection hidden inside every ordinary thing whether anyone else sees it or not. And he doesn't just see it, he falls head first into it.

And the world is then filled with light. William Blake said "To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."  A single flower can be enough reason for an entire life's devotion if someone truly sees the wonder that is contained in it. A single sight of beauty can leave you transfixed for hours.

The world can be grim and dark, the world can hurt, the world can wear you down, the world can seem bleak and grey. But just a little bit of Love shines through all that and fills the world with light that darkness in the entire world can not overcome.  Love makes the utterly ordinary extraordinary.  Love makes a bunch of noises a piece of music, love makes the fall of night a beautiful sunset. Love makes you realise in all the darkness that good will certainly win, that Heaven is real, because through Love we experience it, and that evil will never destroy all that is good. Love is solid and real in the world even when everything else slides into dust.

To Love another person is to truly live. It is to see them as they truly are, the bright Image of God. For in love you see the infinite beauty in their eyes, the infinite nobility in their soul, the infinite possibility in their life if only they chose to do it. And you see the sheer perfection even though on an intellectual level you know that they have flaws like everyone else.  For just a moment you cannot see the flaws at all. You just see the kindness, the generosity, the wisdom, the dedication, the gentleness, the patience, the elegance, the warmth, the intelligence and the laughter. You see the one you Love as we all should truly be, were we all not fallen, and you realise why Life is sacred.

To know someone loves you is the greatest thing in the world.  To see someone's love for you written over their face in a moment is that greatness and wonder captured in a single frame. To be standing unaware, and then to see them looking at you with that incredible, indescribable, unforgettable, unmissable look, which says more perfectly than anything else could ever say, I Love you. Who knew a human face could express so much. And it takes your breath away. And you would live in that moment forever if you could.

Love gives you strength. Love means you can endure more than you ever thought you could.  Love means that the cold and the dark don't touch you because Love transforms every situation. Even a boring or dull task with someone you love becomes a source of joy and laughter and an experience to cherish, because you are sharing it with them.  Love is incredible because uniquely love is not something about yourself but is utterly about the those you love, and so it connects you more deeply with the Universe we inhabit than anything else can.

Love drives you to great things.Love alone can make you sacrifice anything and everything, even if they do not love you.  Love gives true heroism, courage, nobility, wisdom and without it none of these things really exist.  Love makes you realise what truly matters and Love drives you to do something about it, because Love makes every obstacle  and danger seem like a tiny thing compared to all the wonder.

Love may not be grandly expressed; Love may not burn brightly for all to see; Love may be unspoken; Love may be a quiet thing, but it is no less wonderful for that.  Love goes on and on.  You may not feel, but you may still Love, in your commitment, in your dedication, in your kindness, in the actions that you do. And that is Love to.

Love can hurt, and if you trip and fall Love can lead you to do terrible things.  Love can bring great pain, it can be fragile, and it can break, and then it can hurt more than anything else. "Sometimes it last in love, but sometimes it hurts instead".  Love can lead to great loss that cannot be healed, even with time. It can only be slowly forgotten.

But to Love is to realise that the risk is worth it.  To realise that to feel great loss means that you had something wonderful, if only for a while.  Otherwise it would not hurt so much to see it gone. To Love is to realise that it is better to have stood on the peak of the highest mountain and seen the Sun for a few minutes than to have spent all your life in the valleys in the shadows, never knowing what could be possible. Love is a light that even its pain and darkness cannot put out.

Love is the meaning of the Gospel and the Law and the Prophets.  Love is the 1st and 2nd Commandment. Jesus talked about the pearl of great price that a man sells everything he has to hold that pearl and is happy, the treasure in a field that a man sells everything he has and owns just to buy that field. He speaks about the reckless joy and abandon of Loving something and truly knowing it matters, whatever that may be, and that is his description of the Kingdom of Heaven and God.

Christians argued for Centuries about the importance of Faith, and Works, and Gifts of the Spirit, and Knowledge. But in a few lines St Paul bats them all aside. If I speaks prophecies and do wonders and speak in tongues but do not have Love, it is nothing.  If I have all faith, but do not have Love, it is nothing.  If I do all works, but do not have Love, it is nothing. If I know all things, but do not have Love, it is nothing.

St John says it even more briefly: God is love.

God is Truth and Being and the only thing that is truly solid and real in a world of shadows.  But far more than all that God is Love. and as St John also says whoever Loves is truly of God.

And with that I don't know what else to say.   Nothing can truly describe.  Yet if anything is worth writing about it I would say that Love is.