It can be easy to love people who are attractive to us. We can love our spouse, our children and other family members and friends and even love great religious or historic figures we deeply admire.
But what about a homeless woman, or a retarded child or an undocumented immigrant and his family, can we love them? What about a man freed from prison hoping to build a new and productive life, do we see anything to love in him? Can we love the person whose political or religious ideas we differ? Can we love the men, women and children whose nation our nation has declared our enemy and attacked them?
Can we find love for all of these people? If not, where do we draw the line of who is worthy of love and who is not? What is our criteria? Who is our guide? If it is God, do we honor Him in loving some of His creations and not others?
To love God is to seek Him in all of his creations, and to the best of our ability, try to find something within each of them to love. It may be that the only thing we find to love is His presence in them. But if so isn't that presence worth loving?
To truly love is to recognize mankind is filled with imperfections, inadequacies and contradictions, which of course includes you and me. Rather than judge others for their worst characteristics, let us seek out and encourage what is best in them.
In the process we will begin to find love for all of mankind and leave it to God to be the ultimate judge of their flaws.
Dick
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