LOVE IS NEVER LOST

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… ©

While attending the memorial service of long-time friend, Bettie Story, we stayed with long-time friends, Bill and Ann White. I’m up before anyone else, wherever we are, and on the morning of Bettie’s service, I pulled from a shelf Bill’s copy of Harry Emerson Fosdick’s book of prayers for public occasions. Included is a prayer for a memorial service. The language is a bit old-fashioned, so I translated it into the language of that particular and special day. Thus Fosdick said: “God did not lose Bettie in giving her to us to love, and we do not lose her in letting her return to God.”

He is not saying that we don’t lose the physical presence of Bettie, but that we don’t lose the love. Even death does not conquer love, according to Paul, in Romans 8:31-39. God gave Bettie in love, and takes her back in love. The love still connects us. 

If “God is love,” as John, the epistle writer says, then love cannot be lost. It’s like in physics, where energy is not lost. Water can turn into ice or steam, but its energy, its essential being, remains in the universe. Love can be expressed in this worldly body or transfigured into another sort of body, but it is not lost.

“Love is the only rational act.” Morrie Schwartz

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, n 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.