Love, Charity, Truth

Mark 12:29-31 -- "And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is...thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength...And the second is...Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

John 13:34 -- "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."

Moroni 7:47 -- "...charity is the pure love of Christ"
Moroni 7:46 -- "...if ye have not charity, ye are nothing"

I've heard it said more than once that despite the commandment we've been given to love everyone, it's not possible.  I think it was spoken with a sense of practicality by people who readily acknowledged that there were people they knew whom they definitely did not love.  I understand that, and I appreciate their candor, but what they said wasn't true.  The fact is that we can love everyone.  Maybe we can't all to do so all at once, without growing and exercising ourselves to gain that love, and sometimes there are people who are particularly difficult to love and who may have injured us seriously in some way.  But we have great examples of others, Jesus Christ being the foremost but many more mere mortals as well, who have shown great love to others who were the most difficult to love or the least deserving.

I try to love everyone.  I sure don't always succeed.  But I have felt that love for everyone before, and I try to keep it with me.  Interestingly, some of the times when I've most strongly felt the emotion of love for all were times when I was experiencing great trials.  Otherwise, when I feel the greatest love is when I am engaged in service toward them.  That service is a key component, and without taking the time for others I'm sure it would be impossible to gain or keep a love for them.

While service is essential, there are many good things which are not sufficient in and of themselves.  The words of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 strike me particularly: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."

One way to serve others is by declaring truth in this world so full of falsehood and deception.  If we love those around us, we'll want the best for them.  We'll want to speak the truth to enlighten them, if we happen to have light to share.  (And we'll want to gain that light so that we can share it.)  However, we run a certain risk.  When we speak to what is true or right we either explicitly or implicitly speak to what is false or wrong.  In doing so, some will feel as if we're condemning ("judging") them.  Perhaps it's a rare thing these days for people to speak the truth while still genuinely loving those who don't seem to live by it, but I don't think that's the real problem.  I think instead the real problem is the underlying but widely prevalent message that to disagree with someone's actions or lifestyle is to hate them.  Love is preached to be synonymous with complete acceptance of not only the basic person but of everything they do.

The real challenge for me is to live in such a way that people know I love them.  When the situation arises in which they could interpret my words as either condemnation or encouragement, they won't just see me as a "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."  They will know that I really do want what is best for them and that I still love them even with their incorrect choices, just as I hope others will still love me despite my choices that either are wrong or seem wrong to them.

Last thoughts for now:
I know that some people will never feel the love I have for them even when I'm doing my very best to have that love.  I know that I haven't overcome selfishness and have certainly not achieved perfect charity in my heart.  But I know that it is right and good that I should have that love.  I know that I need to keep that love as a constant goal in my life and that without it, nothing else matters.  I hope that I can teach it to my children and encourage it in all those around me.  Charity is greater than hope, but I'll keep hope in a world that knows real charity.