Thousand Faces

Love sometimes comes in disguise. A very successful and recently retired business-owner friend of mine, convinced of the “just business” way of doing things, explained why he chose to sell the company’s shares to his long-standing employees, rather than to an outsider: “Sell the company to a stranger? How could I do that to them?”

He calls that business, I would call it love. His action betrays his deep sense of humanity. That’s love in one of its many faces. Any decision that takes into account the general welfare of others, no matter how coldly logical or financially savvy it might be, comes from a moral imperative we all have built inside of us: the imperative to love.

Because she loved much, she will be forgiven much. (Luke 7:47) A prostitute showed Jesus her very erotic expression of love and was forgiven precisely for it! The disciples could not accept this form of love, because they feared it. It came with a face they did not recognize. 

We call love by other names, like “ethics” or “morals”; we marginalize it in favor of being “practical”; we limit its range by inventing rules and taboos; we stamp it out by ignoring its diversity. Why do we fear love?

Help me see that Your Love has a thousand faces. Amen.

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Go to YouTube or Itunes and listen to a further thought by Randy Montana on Love's Thousand Faces. We recognize diversity of love but we also need to know that we are seen, individually. The song could be heard as talking to God, or even as God talking to you: "Love has a thousand faces, but I see you." 

I owe the expressions, "love has a thousand faces" and last week's idea, "many shores, one ocean" to  Tariq Ramadan. In Quest For Meaning he argues that religious diversity signals a unity, and that unity implies a shared diversity. He wrestles very eloquently with the problem of the multiplicity of religious ways and beliefs, and how they might be seen as illuminating a universal meaning. Much more to come from this rich resource, as I continue to learn much from it!