Love makes Real..and bunnies

This post is for me. I was reading 3 books yesterday, The Art of Counseling by Rollo May, At the Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald, and the Bible.


The first spoke of the importance of empathy, loving sincerely and without guile. That led me to the beautiful portrait of Jesus in the gospels, and 1 Corinthians 13; 'These 3 will remain...faith, hope and love...



Then one of those moments hit me, a sudden understanding like a curtain being drawn aside.
'Faith' has to do with the past, 'hope' the future, and 'love' the oneness of the eternal present.
And all while Micah was getting his teeth cleaned,(he's got two cavities!)



Then just before I fell asleep, Eric asked me to read him some G. MacDonald (yeah!:) and here's where I opened to....



But somehow when once you have looked into anybody's eyes—deep down into them, I mean—no one else will do for you any more. Nobody ever so beautiful or so good will make up to you for that one going out of sight.
So you see, North Wind, I cannot help being frightened to think that perhaps I am only dreaming and that you are nowhere at all! Do tell me that you are my own real beautiful North Wind!"
Again she rose and shot high up into the air. Diamond lay quiet in her arms waiting for her to speak. He tried to see up into her face, for he was dreadfully afraid she did not answer him because she could not tell him she was not a dream. But her hair fell all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened him still more.
"Do speak, North Wind!" he said at last.
"I am thinking what I can say," said North Wind slowly. "And say it so that a little boy like you can understand."
As she spoke, she was settling quietly down on a grassy hill side in the midst of a wild, furzy common. There was a rabbit warren underneath. Some of the rabbits came out of their holes in the moonlight. They looked very sober and wise, like patriarchs standing in their tent doors and looking about them before going to bed. When they saw North Wind, instead of turning around and vanishing again with a thump of their heels, they cantered slowly up to her. They snuffed all about her with their long upper lips which moved every way at once. That was their way of kissing her. Every now and then, she stroked down their long furry backs or lifted and played with their long ears.
"I think," she said to Diamond after they had been sitting silent for a long time, "that if I were only a dream, you would not have been able to love me so. You love me when you are not with me, don't you?"
"Indeed I do!" answered Diamond stroking her hand. "I see! I see! How could I be able to love you as I do if you were not there at all, you know? Besides I would not be able to dream anything half so beautiful all out of my own head. Or if I did, I could not love a fancy of my own like that, could I?"

'...and the greatest of these is love'.... love makes real and maybe love is the only, really real. Diamond gets it and the bunnies too.
'and someday these three will remain; faith, hope and love and the the greatest of these is Love. '

Rabbits are so sober looking, (that's why 'Jean-Luc*' did seem the perfect name for our rabbit...until she turned out to be a girl.) She loves apple cores but there's something she adores even more, being petted by me. Bunny loves to be loved. (We just call her 'Bunny' now.) Even a little animal like a rabbit knows what's really real.

What will remain? What is really real or 'imperishable'? Here's a word about that from Peter...

1 Peter 1:18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. 22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

Have our faith and hope in God who is Love himself and obey the truth so that sincere love from from God will enable us to love one another deeply from the heart.

Don't 'thump' your heals and run back into your hole, accept this imperishable gift, this really real Love, through whom, God brings everything back to Himself. (Col. 1:20)



* Ever heard of Jean-Luc Picard of the Star Ship Enterprise? He's a very sober and humorless bloke.