“What a glorious spring day outside!” the diarist wrote. “How beautiful the world can be! And we have no chance to enjoy it. Human beings are so stupid. Life is so short, and they then go and make it hard for themselves.”
Hardly poetry, but there’s truth in those words, isn’t there? Scribbled amid the tasks of a busy day, the diarist offers the timeless lament of the ambitious. The day is beautiful, the moment a gift, yet I’m too busy to enjoy. You’ve probably had similar thoughts. We do make it hard for ourselves, don’t we? There’s so much to do, but our hearts yearn for something more.
I probably would have acknowledged the diarist’s thoughts with a simple nod if his musings weren’t in such shocking contrast to the unspeakable evil of his life. For a moment, in a lightning-quick flicker of light, we recognize in Joseph Goebbels’ words1 a relatable human observation. Look quickly—it doesn’t last—but even in this most hateful of human beings we catch a glimpse of a being that is, well, human.
I confess I’ve offered an extreme example, but the Goebbels’ quote got me thinking. Here’s the truth in his words: There is more to life than ambitious striving. The world’s beauty calls us to step beyond ourselves. But that’s as far as Goebbels got. He chose instead to give the best he had to the most hellish of causes. The flicker of kinship changes nothing. Goebbels’ beliefs and actions were as evil as evil comes in this world, a mockery of God and unforgivable in their inhumanity.
Still, while his choice was horrible, the call was real. There is for all of us a tug, a whisper, inviting us to life’s fullness and beauty. We’re talking about the good life, a way of living that begins with a step beyond ourselves. The choice is ours: Stay where we are or step beyond. Guard the self or share the self.
Goodness knows a decent-enough life is possible. You mind your own business and stay out of trouble. It’s not bad, but the good is better. There’s more.
You can work hard, build a successful career, leave a legacy of great accomplishment. Is it good? There’s more.
You can love your family, provide and care. Of course that’s good. But it’s not enough. There’s more.
You can serve the noblest of causes, even fight for what is good, and still not be there.
You can read the Bible, swear your allegiance to its words, and defend it with all your might, yet fall short by more than a few miles. There’s more.
You know what the “more” is. It isn’t church membership, as good as that is; it isn’t civic responsibility; it isn’t cultural relevance; it isn’t standing up for all the right causes; it isn’t defending the sanctity of the traditional; it isn’t even “doing no harm.” You can do no harm till the cows come home and even add a plentiful share of good stuff, and more will still await you. The “more” calls and costs.
Everything I’m saying has been said before, of course. You remember.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
And that love is a decision, an attitude, a foundation for one’s life. It is of God.
“The Greek language has another word [for love]. It calls it agape. Agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all people. Agape is an overflowing love, a spontaneous love, which seeks nothing in return. And theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When you rise to love on this level you love all people, not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, not because they are worthful to you, but you love all people because God loves them.”2
We who call ourselves the Church of Jesus Christ are a people birthed by the gracious love that goes as far as it must for the beloved. Born of love, we are a people of love. And there’s more. We’re called to grow in that divine love, to live it together more fully, more beautifully, day by day. In an age of noisy anger, schism, and obnoxious choosing of sides, what if we choose together to choose love. What if, together, we grow toward maturity in the good and beautiful life God invites us to discover? God has invited us; now we choose.
In Christ,
Mark
1) Quoted by Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile, p. 434. Crown. Kindle Edition. The entry was written in the spring of 1941, when Nazi Germany was nearing the height of its power.
2) Martin Luther King, Jr., sermon for the Detroit Council of Churches, March 7, 1961.
