I was on the elliptical machine at the gym this morning; listening to some old playlists on my ipod when the Newsboys version of "I Surrender All" kicked up. Church-goers will most likely be familiar with the classic Hymn however the Newboys inserted a refrain that I may have finally heard and understood for the first time today . . .

"He doesn't love us 'cuz of who we are . . . He only loves us 'cuz of who He is . . . ."

And it hit me:

If we are to love others the way God loves us - we are to love others not because of who THEY are but because of who WE are. We don't love others because they are easy to get along with - we love them because WE are patient and kind. We don't love others because THEY add something in the credit column of our emotional ledger - we love them because WE are generous and giving.

We are called to love others not because of who THEY are but because of who WE have become - people mindful of, prompted and fueled by love. I don't love you because of who YOU are. I love you because that's who I AM.

I want to be the type of man who loves those around me not because of who they are - but because of who I have become.

Its not you - Its me (or rather Christ in me).

And that's a very different approach to love.

http://youtu.be/IpbDHxCV29A

by W. S. Merwin

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

by Dana Gioia

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.
Eternity has festivals enough.
This is the feast of our mortality,
The most mundane and human holiday.

On other days we misinterpret time,
Pretending that we live the present moment.
But can this blur, this smudgy in-between,
This tiny fissure where the future drips

Into the past, this flyspeck we call now
Be our true habitat? The present is
The leaky palm of water that we skim
From the swift, silent river slipping by.

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along—to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

“But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”

-Stephen King

by Maxine Kumin

Whatever happened to the cross-chest carry,
the head carry, the hair carry,

the tired-swimmer-put-your-hands-on-my-shoulders-
and-look-in-my-eyes retrieval, and what

became of the stride jump when you leap
from impossible heights and land with your head

above water so that you never lose sight
of your drowning person, or if he is close enough, where

is the lifesaver ring attached to a rope
you can hurl at your quarry, then haul

him to safety, or as a last resort
where is the dock onto which you tug

the unconscious soul, place him facedown,
clear his mouth, straddle his legs and press

with your hands on both sides of his rib cage
to the rhythm of out goes the bad air in

comes the good and pray he will breathe,
hallowed methods we practiced over and over

the summer I turned eighteen to win
my Water Safety Instructor's badge

and where is the boy from Ephrata, PA
I made out with night after night in the lee

of the rotting boathouse at a small dank camp
on the lower Chesapeake Bay?

http://youtu.be/wSJoZiB-UGY

http://youtu.be/kDA9NbPAK8o