Let Us See What Love Will Do

School has been closed a lot this week as winter's last stormy hand is delivering its final blow. The quiet is refreshing and has allowed me to take some moments to simply sit on under the sky light and listen to the ice and rain that steadily beat upon the glass. I've finished up some reading and found particularly directing the following passage from A Life of Search by D. Elton Trueblood.

Somewhere in the world there should be a society consciously and deliberately devoted to the task of seeing how love can be made real and demonstrating love in practice. Unfortunately, there is really only one candidate for this task. If God, as we believe, is truly revealed in the life of Christ, the most important thing to him is the creation of centers of loving fellowship, which in turn infect the world. Whether the world can be redeemed in this way we do not know, but it is at least clear that there is no other way.

One of the most poignant stories that I have read about a society deliberately devoted to the task of seeing how love can be made real is enclosed in a wonderful book by Edna Hong entitled The Bright Valley of Love. The true story, about a crippled boy named Gunther who finds a home at Bethel (a Christian refuge for the handicapped), unfolds during World War II in Germany as Hitler makes obvious his plans to exterminate the physically disabled. For those who feel that a society, as described by Trueblood, is an impossibility, The Bright Valley of Love is a strong recommendation.