love on Illusion

Thomas Merton once said, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self, This is the man I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. A...

Jesus warns against greed and seeking wealth, because ultimately, money is fiction. Gold coins? Slips of paper? Ones and zeroes in a computer? They only have value because people think they do....

You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental ...

Define yourself radically as beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is an illusion.

Mother’s Day is complicated for a pastor. Among the happy families that are celebrating, there are children who were abused by mothers, mothers who lost lost a child, and women suffering from inferti...

The most insidious deception in human history is the lie that says, “God is against you.”

To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

When one has once fully entered the realm of Love, the world—no matter how imperfect—becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for Love.

Our inclination is to reveal to God only what we feel comfortable in sharing. Naturally, we want to love and be loved by God, but we also want to keep a little corner of ourselves, where we can hide a...

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

It is the prerogative and charm of beauty to win hearts.

[Romantic] Love may not be literally blind, but it does seem to be literally incapable of reason and the levels of appropriate negativity necessary for realism.

Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.

Love . . . is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

Love so great, is to be half afraid— It is like looking at the sun That blinds the eye with truth.

My friend Christina, a licensed therapist, tells me that Psychiatry 101 teaches therapists that when you and I choose to believe a lie about ourselves, it’s one of these three lies we believe: I’m he...

The very essence of romance is uncertainty.

Love is an agreement on the part of two people to overestimate each other.

Where love is, there is the eye.

It’s difficult for people to love the real you when you are covering up who you really are. We connect with others when we take our mask off and let others in.

In her engaging treatment, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes both the beauty and pain of seeing our own sinful nature: It is often true that once we are made to see, we don’t like w...

For though [something] be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately.

Holy God, we confess that we are quick to look through the window and slow to look in the mirror. We confess that we can see how others stumble, but we do not see how we contributed to their stumble. ...

Have you ever played in a swimming pool and tried to hold a beach ball under the surface? Its tendency-you might even say its penchant and desire-is to rise to the surface. It is “restless” when it is...

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son.

Give us, Lord, a clear vision of the truth, faith in your power, and confident assurance of your love.

Heavenly Father, forgive us for delving so much into our own lives that we forget the love and purpose with which you have created us. When we are faced with doubt and despair, help us to turn to you ...

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assura...

Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.