Dear Editor,
In the October issue John Thatamanil wrote on “Keeping Company with Love,” a very important task for us all to attend to. But as I have thought about this, I have concluded that true love requires following a path to reach it. St. Paul spelt this out for us in Galatians 5:22-23: By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
It starts with self-control. Isn’t that so true as we think about our interactions with family members and those we encounter in our daily lives, particularly as we drive on our roads now! And what about gentleness or humility? In some ways how we order things in the church encourages the opposite. Just think about how clergy enter churches with differing vestments and in a prescribed order, while sometimes the laity have their own pews which can reflect their history in the parish.
Along our journeys we will experience the call to goodness as we live by the rules or laws of wherever we live or of our denomination. This means we need to follow these laws or regulations and not do our best to avoid having to do so. Each day too we will be faced with the need for kindness. How will we respond to those who are short of food, clothing, etc. Particularly those in our congregations. Patience is again something we are faced with daily as we deal with our families and those we encounter through the day.
What are we doing to promote peace in our homes, at work and in Canada where we have built up barriers with other groups over centuries past? An area we are starting to work on is our relationship with First Nations folk. But this should involve much more than acknowledging that we meet on unceded territory. We are also to seek peace in our families and in our daily interactions with the people we meet.
Joy should be easy for us here on Vancouver Island as we see the beauty of the sea, the mountains and the forests. As Christians our chief joy should be the certainty that God has demonstrated that love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
This brings us finally to love. Surely true love calls for all we have been considering. If we consider the interactions with our closest family members, doesn’t love require self-control, gentleness, goodness, kindness, peace, patience, joy, Of course, not all interactions can be joyful but even in our most difficult interactions self-control and patience, just to mention two, are surely needed.
David Paton
Retired Anglican priest
