The Courage To Love Extravagantly

If you were with me last Sunday, you remember I quoted Stephanie Dowrick’s wonderful book, Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love, in talking about loving extravagantly:  “It takes courage to wake up to how mysterious and profound life is, and not to avoid, deny, scorn, repress or contain what doesn’t easily fit into our world view.”

What is my world view?  To me, it is my list of rules and regulations—how it should be.  It requires courage to look at a situation and remember that there is always something more.  That’s why we are told to not judge by appearances.

I am convinced that the people in our lives always bring us a gift—sometimes obvious, sometimes not.  Often, the gift is in requiring us to take a higher view.  In staying out of judgment, we remind ourselves that we have no way of knowing exactly what the other person went through—exactly what they experienced, or what they felt.  All we can do is love, and love extravagantly.