::From my Nicaragua 2009 trip journal.::
The noisy gong is nothing if not incessant. After a while, it hurts.
All the religious experiences and efforts at personal holiness are nothing if they cannot translate into love for another. Love in what is said and not said, love across the board whether the relationship will benefit me later or not.
Careless words or efforts to keep another person on my own straight and narrow — hold someone else to what God is working on in me — are not love.
Clanging racket that people want to get away from.
Never quite up to another’s standards.
In my Bible I have the piece of paper from the trip I took in June, the trip where I was told to say something in front of the church.
1 Corinthians 13. I rewrote it then, and read it to the church.
I am an irritating noise.
All that I do — even the good things for God — means nothing.
All my little sacrifices mean nothing,
without love.
There is no room for any kind of pride.
No room for anger.
No room for a memory that keeps track of hurts and cheats.
Love is difficult.
Love is work.
Love is against my nature.
Love is not easily made angry.
There is no score.
Forgiveness is unlimited, and daily.
It can’t stand seeing another in pain.
I may have great faith and live by all the rules,
but if I do not have this love,
I AM NOTHING.
I am no longer to behave like a spoiled child.
Selfish,
pouting,
wanting my way.
Love demands more from me than that.
I don’t even begin to understand how important this love is,
this side of heaven.
But I will someday.
Without love,
I am nothing.
I’ve lacked a lot of love this trip. I’ve lost patience with the noisy gong around me, not seeing that the reason it angers me so is that I am nothing but the same. I recognize the noise for what it is truly is, down deep, only because I know it so well.
I will leave the paper in my Bible indefinitely.
