Love is in the…ground. Not quite the saying we’re all used to and we certainly don’t think of Valentine’s since we’re five months away and that’s not the phrase that typically goes with it. So, we must be talking about something else. I want to bring some perspective to a side of love not often talked about. Over the next three weeks, we’ll explore what I think are some extremely valuable elements regarding a subject that our world has really screwed up or at best, missed.
LOOP stands for Loving Others on Purpose and was the namesake of my buddy’s youth group. In preparing to speak at a youth retreat for him, I decided to use this series title for my messages with him. And now you get to experience some of that perspective.
We just celebrated the 22nd anniversary of what has come to simply be known as a date, 9/11, the day our country was changed forever. Ashly and I got to be in New York the first week of September for a wedding that I was officiating and then stayed for a few days to take in the sights and celebrate my 40th birthday.
I saw some extremely disturbing images and recounted the horror of the minutes, hours, and days surrounding this unthinkable tragedy. As we walked the grounds, saw the fountains where the towers once stood, and toured the museum, I experienced a slew of emotions. My heart felt extreme sadness, pain, pride, inspiration, and I left there with a longing.
That memorial is filled with so many dreadful scenes and the images and videos have frozen that day in a loop of tragedy and heroism, death yet restoration. There’s no escaping the reality of the lives lost in that terrorist attack. And it’s impossible to leave there without thinking of one’s own life and mortality. But there is so much life that has come from all of it as well.
Every day the lives of the victims and heroes of NYC live through the telling of their stories. I would have never known about the names, let alone the stories, of people like, Rick Rescorla, Moira Smith, Benjamin Clark, Orio Palmer, Peter Ganci, Ronald Bucca, or countless others. (Google theirs to read more.)
There were so many details that jumped out to me but there’s one story that stood out. It’s the story of Welles R. Crowther and his sacrifice that day. A former volunteer fireman and a then an equities trader turned into a hero. The people he saved spoke of him as this “stranger out of nowhere” known as the “man in the red bandana.”
One of his friends described him as having “everything he wants to be as a man – STRENGTH-HONOR-COURAGE.”
There’s a clear call to love from scripture but there’s a universal truth that love is a better way to live, with or without God in the conversation. But we miss so much of what love is and sometimes I wonder if we like LOVE as theory more than practice. It seems like it’s the best, when talking about it or when we project it into situations, but when it comes down to walking in it and living it out, theory gets thrown out.
Jesus talks about selfless and sacrificial love and then demonstrates the full spectrum of this type of love. It’s deadly. And we can appreciate and comprehend the gravity of someone dying for the sake of another. That is the extreme. But I wonder if we get enchanted with the theory and jaded by our reality.
For the millions watching the events unfold of that unbelievable tragedy, disbelief and sadness were among the emotions. But in the days and months that followed, there was not much cleaning that had to be done. However, for thousands who were present, lived nearby, worked right there, helped in the rescue, there was a different feeling altogether.
And then for Crowther, and so many others like him, who ran up as others were running out, who met death while giving others their life, we find another dimension entirely.
This is what I believe Jesus wanted to communicate with his words, but also with his life. How he lived, served, and embraced scripture was as different from what people were used to as me watching the World Trade Center collapse from Guymon, Oklahoma in my school to what Welles Crowther was doing that day.
ESPN did a DOCUMENTARY on Welles R Crowther and in it asked this question that I am still sitting with and want you to take some time to contemplate as well:
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR LAST HOUR?
As you consider that question, I also want to give you a new word. I’ve had this in my journal for a while and never had the right place to use it. This seems fitting. COURAGOSITY – extreme generosity for the sake of others that can be frightening to think about!
Jesus lived with COURAGOSITY. I want to live a life of COURAGOSITY! How about you?
#Couragosity
#NineEleven
#FruitOfTheLOOP
#RestoringWholenessOfLife
Brett
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