There are times in thinking when one line of thought leads is some odd way to another. So it was the other day as I was thinking about who knows what and it occurred to me that it takes some of us an entire lifetime to learn to say, "Yes." Others seem to grasp the point much earlier in life. St. Therese leanred "Yes" very early on. I have not yet done so. Learning to say yes, mean yes, and live yes--what a formidable task. But it is all made possible through love:
"Many waters cannot destroy love,
for love is stronger than death. . . "
It is only on the tenuous bridge of love that humanity crosses from one generation to the next. We cannot cross in any other way, but looked at today it seems so much more tenuous than it ever has. Surely this is mere chronological bias--surely. All times must have seemed this way to the people living in them. After all, how many times did God have to tell us that the right thing to do is to give some food to the hungry. Surely our own innate human understanding should make this a point that needs no further reinforcement from a supernatural agency? And yet, when it is not said and repeated constantly, the vast majority of us tend to fall back on "I, me, mine."
Anyway--you can see how thoughts start in one way and end in another. And I am intrigued by the thought that love is that slender bridge, the rope bridge across the chasm that looks at any moment like it might be swept away, and yet which, because of its Foundation, is more solid than the rock it is anchored to. And yet, we trust it so little. Or perhaps we don't, but there are those among us who look at it askance.
