How do I love when this happens?

I’m in the process of becoming an official member of the church I joined more than a year ago, the church Red and I probably would have chosen when we made it a habit again — I’m still not quite sure how we drifted away. In any case …

As part of the process, when asked what being a Christian means to me, I found myself back in the moments after Red breathed her last, and I numbly looked at my laptop — I had been reading from the Bible in accordance with her last wishes (“I want you to read to me”).

The laptop was open, and this must be the last thing she heard on Earth, to Matthew 22: 36-40:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

“I’ve made that sort of my mission statement from then on,” I told the deacons.

As I was preparing these thoughts to share with you, word came down that a mentally ill young man in Minneapolis had armed himself and fired into a church while schoolchildren were attending Mass, wounding 19 people, 14 of them kids, at least two fatally.

How does one reconcile this terrible act with Jesus’ commandment? This evil killer is my neighbor, as well — the bottom line is we are all neighbors on this little speck of dust sojourning through the galaxy at untold speed.

I don’t think of him as my enemy, but I suppose he qualifies, and the hatred he expressed surely sounds like he would think of me as his enemy. How do I love this guy?

“Hate the sin, love the sinner”? I’m not sure that goes far enough. There’s enough hate in the world. There’s too much rage, too much of the political and ideological fury that fueled this killer’s madness.

I have literally given my life to Christ, and that means I have set aside the rage and the hatred and committed to approach each one I meet in a spirit of love. And when I struggle with that — when a crazy person sprays bullets into a group of innocent children — the only way I can treat that person with love is through the spirit of Christ in me.

Oh, how I want to place blame on whoever it was who stoked the sick fires in this young man’s soul, who pushed him over the edge of madness. I want to scream, “See what you’ve done?” at someone, anyone, but that is not for me to say.

What I do want to say is that I have been called to love my neighbor, and everyone I meet is a neighbor, and the ultimate solution to what ails us as a species is to consider the intrinsic value of every life we encounter day by day, minute by minute.

“Six million was not enough,” the insane young man wrote on his weapon, but no, the extermination of one human is too many. Only when we turn from the rage and the hatred will we begin to see hints of the peace on Earth that every rational person seeks.

I can’t remove the evil roaming about this troubled world. All I can control is my own heart, and I choose to love God and to love you.

A glimpse of the future

Snooger, a snoggle, was snoring in his sleep when an alien from another planet stepped on his foot. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Little Bill Gentle got involved when the alien and her vampire friend trespassed on his property. The two of them changed his life rather dramatically.

Viktar, the Lost Prince of Venus, was not really lost. He and his aide, Tudie Tidalbars, were — well, perhaps I’m telling more than I should at this juncture.

“Yes, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said the red-haired young woman who happens to be the alien who accidentally gave Snooger his rude awakening. “And what’s this about me being an alien?”

“Of course we’re aliens to these people,” said Blaine, her vampire friend. “This is their planet, not ours.”

“I know,” said Jeep Thompson. “It just takes some getting used to.”

Once upon a time, a writer who lived near the waters of Green Bay awakened not long after midnight and remembered that he had not written his daily blog post yet.

“Whatever shall I write about?” the writer murmured to himself.

“Hey, we snoggles are still trying to sleep here,” came a voice from somewhere in the distance. “Snooger, shut your friends up, please.”

“Sorry,” said the writer. “I didn’t mean to cause a commotion.”

“It’s not your fault,” whined Snooger. “Everything was fine until she stepped on my fooo-oot.”

“Do all snoggles whine like this?” Jeep asked.

“Only the ones who get their feet stomped,” smiled Little Bill Gentle.

The writer posted his blog post and went back to sleep — or at least that’s what they thought. Only he knows what really happened next.

Time in a bottle

“Where does the time go? It seems like yesterday that she was just a puppy.”

No, it doesn’t. That was 12 years ago, and a year is a long time. Even yesterday was a long time ago.

“But doesn’t it seem like —?”

Do you know how very long a day is? Or an hour? Here’s an idea: I’m going to set a timer and I bet you can’t sit still for one minute.

“Oh, come on.”

One minute starts … Now!

“This is silly.”

Shush.

“I see your point.”

Not yet you don’t.

“OK. Dum de de dum dum dum … Now, can we —”

Not yet. Plenty of time.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake —”

Time!

“That was more than one minute.”

Nope. In fact, that was only what I was write with pen and paper in one minute. If we were actually talking, it would have been two or three times as much fidgeting and “oh come ons.”

“And your point is that 12 years is a long time, I get it.”

Actually, my point is that one day is a long time. One hour is a long time. And even one minute takes a while.

“Yes, yes —”

And 12 years is long enough to be born, live a dog’s life, and start slowing down. Do you remember that time when we made that one memory?

“Sure. That was a long time ago — what, 15-20 years, right?”

The dog was 4 years old.

“No!”

Yes. A day is still just as long as it was when a year was a quarter of your lifetime. It just seems shorter because your lifetime has been such longer now.

“All I said was it seems like only yesterday that she was a puppy.”

And all I’m saying is it was almost 4,400 yesterdays ago.

“It seems like a long time after all, when you put it that way.”

So, let’s get going.

“What? Where?”

Wherever we can go in 960 minutes. Whatever we can do in 57,600 seconds. That’s how much time we have each day: 16 waking hours.

“OK. Let’s get busy.”