6-15-03
SIMPLY SOW THE SEEDS
After
one of my marriages didn't work out I was moaning to a friend "You
know very well that I poured a lot of love into that marriage." She
said, "Can't you have faith in love?"
Not realizing where she was coming from I said, "What do you mean,
‘have faith in love'? I agree with Paul that love is the greatest
power in the Universe."
She smiled and said, "Oh really!"
Finally, it had sunk in. When a relationship doesn't work out – one
into which we have poured ourselves – can we not see our love as a
seed and have faith it will do whatever love is supposed to do in that
situation? Do we have to control its outworking? Are we control freaks
with our love? Does it always have to work out exactly as we desired to
be accepted as good love?
I love to garden. You can plant two of the same seeds and get two
different plants, one seemingly healthy and another shaky. Same soil,
same seeds.
But are the seeds ever the same? Is the soil ever the same? All we have
to go by are appearances.
And no matter how much "quality control" we think we have over
the situation, we still are often left with nothing certain except
appearances.
Maybe your love was good but the soil was not right for your kind of
love. Maybe your lover had motives and expectations you never saw or
understood. Maybe there was a secret agenda.
You may study psychology all your life and still be startled by
someone's response to your love. I knew a psychiatrist who had a running
gun battle with his wife in a fancy subdivision.
Sri Ram wrote, "If we love another person with a pure love, that
love goes to the root of things where all are one, and thus we help the
whole." This may sound too visionary but either we have faith in
love or we don't. There is no middle ground.
Be slow to decide to love someone (yes, love is a choice) but when you
do, sow your love seeds without imposing control. Plant your seeds with
faith in love, not faith in the person, and leave the crop to Life.
*****
Another column by Dalton appears each Friday in the Chattanooga Times
Free Press. Yet other writings may be found at http://www.daltonroberts.com/
