"It is not love in the abstract that counts. Men have loved a cause as they have loved a woman. They have loved the brotherhood, the workers, the poor, the oppressed - but they have not loved [humanity]; they have not loved the least of these. They have not loved "personally." It is hard to love. It is the hardest thing in the world, naturally speaking. Have you ever read Tolstoy's Resurrection? He tells of political prisoners in a long prison train, enduring chains and persecution for the love of their brothers, ignoring those same brothers on a long trek to Siberia. It is never the brothers right next to us, but the brothers in the abstract that are easy to love."
- Dorothy Day, social activist and founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Nov. 29 was the 25th anniversary of Day's death. (Sojo Mail's source: Daily Dig.)
Thursday, December 08, 2005
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2 comments:
We are such lovers of the abstract. We love ideals and knowledge. However, it really is hard to make that love real. To take that thought, that idea, imagination, and bring it into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Love without action is dead...
Love is hard. Damn hard.
And any love not based on truth, is not love, but adultery.
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