JANUARY 6
The best way to know God is to love many things.
—VINCENT VAN GOGHAfter a severe loss, it is hard to venture any new love, let
alone to nourish wisely the loves that we have. We are con-
sumed by our loss. What do we have to give? And if we
venture a new love, what is to protect us from the same
thing happening again?
Nothing. Yet the wisdom of the ages is that the way to
find life is to pour our love out on the rest of creation.
I remember, as a child in the aftermath of my first experi-
ence with death, thinking that the best way to shield myself
from devastation at the other losses which were bound to
occur in life was to love as many people as possible. Then
when one of them died, I’d still have all those others left to
love. I don’t know that the geometry of love works quite
that way, but it wasn’t bad for starters!
To be vulnerable is to be human at the most profound and enrich-
ing level.