Learning Love

Oh, may the love that is talked, be felt! and so lived that when weighed in the scales of God we be not found wanting. Love is consistent, uniform, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, unutterably kind; even that which lays all upon the altar, and, speechless and alone, bears all burdens, suffers all inflictions, endures all piercing for you and for the Kingdom of Heaven” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 312).

Perhaps nowhere in Mrs. Eddy’s writings could be found a more beautiful exposition of that love to which Jesus so often referred, saying: “Love one another,” and to which his own life bears everlasting testimony. Love is the fulfilling of the law, and through our study of the Science of Being, we have the blessed privilege of learning Love, and of learning how to love; how to separate the wheat of thought from the tares of mortal sense, gathering the wheat into our consciousness, there to abide for eternity.

How shall one learn Love? the heart asks. How shall one learn to bear good-will toward all men, to be ever good-natured, in the sense of being in the nature of good—God? How shall one learn to prefer being lovely to being loved? How shall one learn the love which is neither embittered by inconstancy and inappreciation, nor enslaved by fears and sympathies; majestic and immutable in storm, and buoyant with joy and inspiration in sunshine? How shall one learn that love which is broader and deeper and more sublime than mere affection? that far-seeing love, which can close its ears to the appeals of the clinging nestling, and with steady purpose shove the bird from its warm nest that it may learn to fly? How shall one learn the love which in patience can behold its struggles, and in meekness bear its resentment, abiding the time when on steady wing it soars into freedom and into gratitude? How? how? is the cry of the hungry heart.

Every how which the heart sends forth is another knock which opens the door of understanding a little more. Within us all is a crying hunger for more Light. In some it is greater than in others. Rejoice when this spiritual longing is experienced, for such mind action is a mighty force within, making for Light, Good, God; even as the seed beneath the sod pushed up toward the light in its reach for the fulness of life. Within the bulb sleeps the finished lily; within the question lies the embryo of the coming answer; within the seed of interrogation is enfolded the flower of all knowledge; hence there is no cause for discouragement so long as there is the inaudible yearning for Light. “Man walks in the direction towards which he looks” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures); and specified desire looks in a definite direction. Desire suggests direction, and direction brings progress; hence we need to thank God for our God-like desires as well as our attainments, since such desire is the seed of all attainment.

When the well-springs of divine Love seem dry, when the mind seems barren as a desert and the heart as bleak as a moor, still there is no cause for discouragement, if the desire to realize Love’s Omnipresence is there. We may take this simple desire, give thanks for even that, and in that very gratitude is the renewal of the sense of divine Love. When Jesus took the loaves and fishes, he used such as he had at hand, recognizing it, giving thanks for it, blessing it, breaking it, and multiplying it into thousands, until there was enough to feed the multitude, with baskets full left over. So may we take the desire for righteousness, recognize it, give thanks for it, bless it, and use it as the basis of our multiplication of the sense of divine Love. Then shall gratitude multiply into generosity, and generosity into such opulence that there shall not only be enough for the present need, but baskets full left over to form the basis of renewed action. Then shall the vacuum of discouragement be filled with sweet gratitude, which is the very substance of increase.

The supreme desire of the heart should be to love God, whom to know aright is to love. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.” Evidently it is not enough for us to realize how God loves us. “Thou shalt love” is the commandment. We may have faith without understanding, but we can no more have understanding without faith, than we can count two without mentally embracing one. It is faith which rests in the sense of God’s love for us, even as the little child rests in the loving mother’s arms. Yet in that hour of maturity, when intelligence answers to Intelligence and love responds to Love, one finds that one has not lost anything but gained immeasurably. Then it is that understanding beholds the Father’s face in that spiritual recognition in which heart, soul, and mind pours forth, “How beautiful my God is!”

Let us earnestly consider the fruits of loving God. We read, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” We love God. He devises the good. Loving Good—God—quickens the perception of good opportunities to which we would otherwise be blind. The same conditions are set forth in the following: “I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.” Underlying these two quotations is the Principle which moves circumstances and destroys poverty. Divine Love is the Principle of production, and in loving God all things begin to unfold. In loving God we consciously lift ourselves above the reach of error. In loving God we find our sense of protection becomes greater than the sense of being attacked. In loving God we find that every pitfall is uncovered, and we are lifted over by the Everlasting Arms. This, then, is the first and great commandment, that we love God consciously and understandingly, thus transcending, yet embracing, our faith in His love for us. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

Passing on to the second commandment we read again, “Thou shalt love,” but this time it is our neighbor. Thus loving God and our neighbor constitutes the very flower of Christianity. In learning to love our neighbor we find ample need for the perfectibility of human relationships. Soon, very soon, it is found that the heart needs healing as well as the body, and that there is occasion to manifest intelligent affection as well as good health. First we take the step which finds the body whole. Next we take the step which heals the circumstances of such impoverishment as cripples the means of manifesting our highest ideals of harmony and beauty. Then as the world’s din becomes fainter and farther, we catch the rhythm of friendships whose harmonies transcend the merely personal, and with ever-increasing crescendo lifts upward towards

God, whence it came. We pause to enjoy God together. Afar we catch glimpses of the height on which Jesus stood when he said, “Henceforth … I have called you friends.” Below, throughout the mists of the valley re-echoes the voiceless cry of humanity calling to an unknown God, “Help! help me!” In loving servitude we place our hands in the Father’s, saying, “Send me.” This is the unseen Hand which draws us to one another in this world, though apparently we come unsummoned. In such spiritual companionship we heed the words of Mrs. Eddy: “Hast thou a friend, and forgettest to be grateful?” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 339).

No Christian Scientist could have attended the last Annual Communion in Boston and have crossed our Leader’s path without observing that she has proven before us the power of Truth over disease, poverty, and friendlessness. In her, as the Leader of the staunchest and most rapidly increasing religious movement of the day, is the exemplification of the love which draws, and the love which holds what it gathers, leading and holding by virtue of her obedience to the command, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate.” Hers is not so much the love which runs around trying to do good, as the love which causes others to go about her getting good. The following poem of Bryant’s suggests itself:—

She met the hosts of Sorrow with a look
That faltered not beneath the frown they wore,
And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took
Meekly her gentle rule, and frowned no more—
Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath
And calmly broke in twain
The fiery shafts of pain,
And rent the nets of passion from her path.
By that victorious hand despair was slain;
With love she vanquished hate, and overcame
Evil with good, in her great Master’s name.

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” But from what shall we be lifted up? From the mortal sense of love. Forgiveness is largely the passport to love; it lifts us into that compassion wherein we forgive our neighbor even as we forgive ourselves. “And when ye stand praying … forgive if ye would be forgiven.” It is when love sinks to earth that it becomes lost in the fog of fear, bitterness, unforgiveness. Regaining itself and rising to spiritual heights, it becomes illumined with happiness, healing, regeneration; eventually gaining that most rarefied summit, forgiveness. It is the mortal self-love which cannot forgive. It is the mortal love which fears. It is the mortal love which is jealous, seeking to rob another of the fulness of attainment and companionship, only to find itself bereft. Love does not so sacrifice the beloved. It is the pride of mortal love which exacts dependence in another, thereby crushing freedom. It is the mortal mistrust which lends a ready ear to mental poison. “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.” Rivalry, selfishness, fear, greed, pride, jealousy, mistrust, etc., are what one needs to be lifted up from. They have no place in the spiritual sense of love. They draw no man unto them. They form the basis of discord and disunion. They are the separators, seeking to part us from one another; seeking to divert us from that one who, like a Star of Bethlehem, leads us to the Christ-life.

Perhaps no attribute of the Divine Nature appeals to humanity more strongly than the constancy of God’s Love for man. It becomes the panacea for all fear, the keynote of all faith. Nothing will cause humanity to fight against such tremendous odds as a purpose fraught with love, as witnessed in the mother love, which, when at its height, can give us no sweeter ideal of courage and constancy. Inconstancy would react upon ourselves, hence we do not strive to crucify love, but to crucify the mortal sense of love. Not to love less, but less harmfully and more helpfully. Not to surrender companionship, but to surrender such mental qualities as make it discordant. Not only to sacrifice outwardly, but inwardly. “Love is unselfish when it merges its will into the will of another, sacrificing its own aims and desires for another’s. Love is selfless when it merges its will into the Infinite, sacrificing its own aims and desires for the love of Truth.” Martyrdom is synonymous with having died for a principle, and considering the long line of Christian martyrs behind us, who shall say that God cannot be loved as Principle? “Lovest thou me more than these?” is answered affirmatively every time we choose Principle rather than preference. In attaining growth we pass naturally from the cruder sense of love, into clearer and higher altitudes just as speedily as God gives us occasion for advancement. Have you yearned for the mountain heights of such love? Then murmur not when you stir the occasion for ascendency.

Perhaps there comes a time when mortal mind deals its severest blow, a time when we are called upon to be weaned from mere personal love, and on the ladder of these human ties climb into the region of unselfed love; that child-like, holy, adequate love, beside which the lesser personal love pales, as does the morning star before the glory of the rising sun. Emerson says, “We are put in training for a love which knows not sex, nor person, nor partiality.” Given the occasion for training, there comes a time when partiality begins to fade, when many are equally as dear as the few once were, when the sense of unity becomes less exclusive and more inclusive; when we no longer hold the few in a harmful, greedy clutch like a whirlpool, drawing everything to itself and down, in the sense of “mine, mine;” but like a fountain the thought of love pours out with a showering sense of “thine thine.” There comes a time when the human sense of love recedes, and with it the sense of separation, and loneliness, and pain; when the spiritual triumphs and the heart lies at rest,—such unutterable rest as to enfold every beloved presence, for where God is none can seem very far. Then it is that we know how blessed are they that mourn, for it is they who seek comfort in the realization that eternal life and identity are no vain dream, but a glorious reality; that our mortal sense of separation is the only separation there is, since in Omnipresence there can be no absence; when the once pleading hands that groped in space lie clasped in a patient trust in that Divine Law which, having brought us together once, will bring us together again and again, throughout eternity. Finally, there comes a time when the love for God outweighs all other ties. A time when all we ask is the blessed privilege of following where He leads, and of being within the radiance of His Light. The One Father-Mother God for whom we constantly prepare our thought acceptable and worthy to be laid bare in that Light, though we may die a thousand deaths, and be as many years in the accomplishment! The One God for whom we gladly suffer a constant crucifixion of mortal sense, whose Omnipresent Love we could no more turn from and be happy than we could breathe under water! The One God who showers us with such a wealth of divine Love as to make us fall helpless to the knees beneath the weight of such opulence! The Adorable One at whose feet we daily throw our thought and say “Here am I, God; what wilt thou have me be?”