what's wrong with the world is, nobody stretches anymore.
if i had to nail down everything that Christ taught into one word, i think it would be "stretch." no, not "love," but "stretch."
if i nailed down everything that Christ taught into the word "love," i don't think it would catch anyone's attention. i think if i said, "you know what, guys? i think it all boils down to love," i think the rest of you would say "sure. we know that." but if i said, "you know what, guys? i think it all boils down to stretching," i think you might say, "what the?"
it's easy, really, to commit to being more loving. when our spouse or our friend or our family member tells us that what we did was thoughtless or hurtful or neglectful, we usually respond with, "oh, wow......i'm sorry. i didn't mean it that way at all. i promise i won't do that again."
and then we do it again.
the reason we do it again, i think, is not so much because we lack the love but because we lack the stretch - the willingness to endure the pain that doing the loving thing almost always entails.
i have a family on my current caseload whose father yells all the time (i'll save the miracle of the fact that there's actually a father in the home for another post). this man is a basically decent guy who has a childhood history of all kinds of horrors. he loves his family - he does - but he's not willing to stretch above and beyond his own pain to stop inflicting it on others. i told him so last night......
"sir, you're like all of us, myself included - you're selfish. and you need to stretch."
"excuse me?"
"you need to stretch."
"stretch?"
"stretch."
blank stare..........
"you need to stop thinking and stop saying how much you love your family."
"i need to what?"
"stop thinking and stop saying how much you love your family."
blank stare.......
"instead of focusing on the love, focus on the stretch. as soon as you feel like you don't wanna do the loving thing, do the loving thing anyway. push yourself. force yourself. stretch yourself."
"it's hard," he said.
"stretch," i said.
"i'll try, " he said.
"nope," i said, "do it."
i have this same conversation over and over and over with all of my clients - and with myself. Christ wasn't telling us to love when we felt loving - He was telling us to love when we don't. most of us fail miserably at that.
my resolution this year?
touch my toes.
