I Take off the MASK!

The first duty of love is to listen. – Paul Tillich

We all want to be heard. We want our family and friends to be there for us in times of need. We want other people to listen to our ideas, our feelings and our many thoughts. We all want to be able to talk. But who is willing to listen?

It is not listening if we fill our minds with our own opinions while others speak. It is not listening if instead of trying to understand where others are coming from, we are trying to find ways to defend our point of view. We don’t really listen if we keep silent only with our mouths as others speak.

If we truly want to listen, we keep also the silence in our minds so we can hear what other people are saying. If we truly want to listen, we listen not only to what they are saying, but also to what they may want to share but fail to say. We listen not only with our ears but with our hearts.

There are many times when we think we have already given another person a chance to speak, but what we don’t realize is that we may have failed to really listen enough. If we have listened enough, we may have learned more than what we think we already know. We may have discovered something else that the other person really wanted to say.

We don’t listen just to have a chance to disagree. We listen to show the other person our respect. We listen believing that the other person has something worth saying, if not in words, in things which even words can fail to express. Have you listened enough?

So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger… – James 1:19, WEB

God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:27, WEB-BE

We were created in God’s own image, you and I. We were made holy, pure and beautiful. We were made to be so full of love.

How much of that image can we see in each other? When we look at another person, are we able to see what’s truly valuable in him or in her?

Quite often, we let people pass us by without even noticing. Who cares who they are? Who cares where they come from?

But each of these people has their own story. Each one has struggles. Each has victories similar to our own.

If we can only learn to look deeply, we’d be able to see through all the masks that people wear. We’d be able to see the true beauty that remains within one’s soul. A soul that can appreciate what’s lovely and good, a soul that can laugh and weep, a soul that can search for wisdom and truth, a soul that can have compassion on another, a soul that has a capacity to love.

Let us learn to value a person not because of his riches or power or physical attributes. Let us learn to value a person because of his soul and his great capacity to love.

“Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.” – Victor Hugo

“Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you watch one hour?” – Mark 14:37, WEB

If we can’t give our loved ones our precious hour, how could we even promise them our lives? What is so important in your schedule that you can’t give an hour of attention to someone you love?

There are people who are so oppressed in both time and money that their lives seem no longer theirs to give. There are many also who sacrifice so much just to give good things to those they love.

But there are those who seem to forget that the most important thing they could give are not their gifts, but their very presence. And there are those who fail to find time not because there isn’t any, but because there is not much will to find a way.

You may never truly know how precious that single hour of your presence could be for another person. To someone who is grieving, that hour could be an hour of great consolation. To someone who is lonely, that hour could be the only hour he meets a friend. To someone who is lost, it could be the very hour he is saved.

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world. – Mother Teresa

“Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.” – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Fear is a natural response to something that might destroy us. Courage is our God-given ability to face our fears when it is more beneficial to fight rather than to run away.

What’s wrong with us is to fear the wrong things and to not find courage for the things worth fighting for.

We fear being lonely, but we’re not afraid of being with someone who disrespects us. We fear sickness, but we’re not afraid of death. We fear losing our pride, but we’re not afraid to lose our dignity.

We have to know what to fear and what to fight for. We have to know when to run away and when to keep on holding on.

Don’t be afraid of being responsible for your actions. But fear betraying others just to satisfy your desires. Don’t be afraid of making a sacrifice for the ones you love. But fear your own selfishness and using other people just to feed your pride. Don’t be afraid of suffering that comes naturally in this life. But be afraid that your heart loses compassion and your soul loses its very life.

So if your right eye causes you to sin, take it out and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose one of your limbs than to have your whole body go off to hell. – Matthew 5:29-30, GNT

Perfect joy could not be joy alone but must be a joy that somehow contains our past grief and sadness and longing. – Jessica Mesman Griffith, Love and Salt

To really grieve for something is to have truly valued it, for if we grieve not for a thing lost, we have not found that thing at all.

We can console ourselves by saying that what’s truly important is the journey, and the time of togetherness, but deep within our hearts, we ask, “What good is our time of meeting if sooner or later, we must part?”

Those who say it is but sufficient to love for a moment have not truly loved, for love always desires to last forever. It isn’t enough to have loved for a single day. It isn’t enough to love for a lifetime. It isn’t enough to love for ten thousand years. If we truly love, we want to love without end for only in love is there life.

Grieve if you must, for it has shown that you have loved. We grieve as much as we have been made happy. We grieve as much as we have been made alive.

Grief is our bridge towards joy – joy that has passed, and joy that is to come. Only those who grieve desire to hope, for hope is our only consolation in our time of parting. With God, we know that we do not hope in vain for time shall surely come when our grief shall turn to joy again and that joy can never ever be taken away!

Therefore you now have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. – John 16:22, WEB-BE