LOVE

Augustine of Hippo is credited with the words, “Love God and do what you want.”

Father Anthony used to say it, too.

Do you agree with these words?

I do.

Have you ever met people who live like that? Father Anthony being the expected response, perhaps, could you recall other people who live like that?

No, I can’t. Maybe, only saints, but I have never met a saint, I only read about them.

And what about Father Anthony? I might have been too quick to skip it, but did he live like that

He did. Amazingly, if he saw that someone needed something, he did it, and he used to say, “Don’t let anyone wait even for a minute, thinking that maybe someone else would do it, or something else, or later—do it here and now.” I can give you an interesting and funny example: he was traveling by train to Scotland, and there was a man sitting in front of him. It was an Englishman holding a newspaper, He was hiding behind it. And Father Anthony felt his desperation, and said, “What's the matter with you?” And the man opened up and said he was ready to commit suicide that very moment. And they got talking and so on. So, he just felt it was the right thing to do, he somehow felt it and acted. In that sense yes, but I haven't met any other people who would do that, so... (Both laughing.) We use to say, “Maybe I’ll do it later, or maybe not now, or somebody else will do it”—unfortunately, we do that, right?

Unfortunately, we do. Once you also said... As you can see I just go through what you have already said.

It’s awful, I’ve said so much.

You said we should say about love every day, that’s the essence of life. Well, clearly, that was in the context, when you said about forgiveness and then you said that we should talk about love every day. And how does that relate to not talking about God, but living with God?

I never talk about love, I don’t know where that comes from.

Maybe that’s what a journalist did, maybe those words are not exactly accurate.

OK, then. I don’t talk about love, I think love needs to be shown, we need to be with Christ deep inside, it’s His love, not my love. At the end of the day, the goal it to earn love, to love everyone, but the goal for me is to reveal myself in such a way that He extends His love on me. We can’t love every person, it’s not enough, but I never talk about love, maybe this quotation is misleading, maybe I didn’t put it that way, I don't know, but I think that the only thing you can do is being there for a person, or showing who you are, more or less, showing that they are important to you, that you are there for them now and that nothing else matters, at least you can try and say for yourself, “Lord, be here, help me, this person is Your child, pour out Your love for them.” If it’s hard for you to around this person, if you don’t want it, then just say, “Lord, I don’t feel good being around this person, but extend Your love on them, and I’ll be here.” That’s important to say bluntly that you feel awful if that’s the case, but that you will be there, and to ask God to be with you.

Have you ever had a situation like that?

Rarely, but at times... I remember, now, not long ago I met a woman who was very difficult to deal with, and I struggled with her in my mind a lot, and then, later, I was able to see more, that really she was outside, that’s what we were talking about—he behavior pushed her out of the light, not her behavior... Usually it’s not behavior that you feel hard to accept, but what a person projects, their energy, I don’t know how to put it in other words, that when we sit or stand next to someone, we have to keep the distance of a meter and a half in the subway now, we feel that a person standing behind us is angry, we feel their essence. And that’s what’s harder to embrace. But sometimes it is difficult, and then I struggle and try to do it.

I have not even come up with a special question, I have one, but it’s an optional one. You said, “No one shall die alone, hearing is the last sense to go, as well as tactile sensations, so I often hold a person by their hand. Of course, I monitor if they are in pain and short of breath, whether I need to wet their mouth, all these things are important. I silently pray that Christ was there for the person.” It’s amazing, it wasn’t even easy for me to read it, but here, of course, you can’t do it without feeling love for the person.

I wouldn’t say I feel love, but maybe it’s compassion. When a person is really suffering, you can’t leave, I can’t leave, because you can see that they are usually scared. Yesterday and the day before yesterday I was in the hospice. There was this old man, dying for a long time, maybe didn't live the way he should have lived, I don't know, it’s not for me to judge, but he was dying for a long time. And he’s surprised to see that somebody is sitting next to his bedside, he has relatives, but they don’t visit usually, only rarely. And I’m not saying that I have love in me, but I feel this compassion, I do, but it’s not mine, it’s the Lord who gives it to me, and, apparently, I need it. Sometimes you don’t need it, but it’s rare that a person doesn’t want someone around, but if a relative is around, then it’s good, but relatives are scared, too. Sometimes I ask whether I should stay or leave. But it’s important that someone was around. Once I had strong pain in my back, and I had fallen, and my back hurt so much that, to my surprise, I thought, “I wish someone was around.” And that was a revelation to me because I’m a pretty independent person. It’s important to feel at least human warmth, you don’t even need words, but just the presence of someone around when it hurts very badly, this pain, of course, is physical, but people experience mental and spiritual pain, too. I think that being around a person is important. There are exceptions, but I haven’t seen them yet. There are some people who, I think, prefer to stay highly focused while praying, being alone with God, maybe do not need anyone around them. But most people do—and it’s not words or murmuring that they need, they just need someone next to them, it’s what we were talking about, just to feel someone alive around, and then it will be easier for them.

And you said you don’t talk about love, but, you know, one of my guests said that we call love all sorts of things—especially in today’s world—it’s such a worn-out word, he said that we have to define love through something else. Some people say... So, we all have our own word for love. He says that some think of love as sacrifice, he himself said that love is openness. Which word would you use?

Openness, I am with him about this one. Openness and creating possibility for God to shed His love on a person.

You know, by openness he also meant vulnerability, he said that when you love you are open and vulnerable.

Yes, but it’s even more than that, it’s not about being open only to humans, it means being open to God so that He can inhabit you and be able to do what He wants to do to comfort or to shed His love on a person. Although being open is important, yes.

Thank you so much. We have come to an end, and I told you I would ask you to put a comma or a full stop in a sentence. Look, once you said that it’s not what you do that is important, it’s who you are...

How you do it.

…Yes, that’s why you can do any job. Imagine a person comes to you for advice, they want to get your advice, their life is a success, as they say now, this person has got a family, children, a job, some great job, let’s say they are an emergency response officer or a fireman, something like that, they are serving people. This person is a conscientious Christian, they have already had this encounter some time ago, so to speak, they live this life, and suddenly at some point it seems to them that they must leave all that to become a hospice volunteer, for example. The person says to you, “I want to abandon it all, to leave my family, I want to go to work in a hospice.” Where would you put a punctuation mark in the phrase “Resolve (i. e. to support them) impossible to wait”?

Could you say it again, please?

Or we can put it like that: “To support impossible to wait.” That is you can advise them to wait.

I would advise them to wait.

To wait? It means you find it impossible to support them? So, we have: “To support impossible, to wait”?

To wait, yes. I think that sometimes people happen to act by their emotions. They think, “I want to work there, to serve.” It’s better to cool them down, and then if they see that there are options, and they achieved some kind of balance, you say: “Come in a year if you want to.” That’s what I would say. Because people often act by impulses, but you won’t get anywhere just by being impulsive, you will immediately feel disappointment, it’s too shallow, to make the decision you have to stay focused. If a person made careful decision after thinking a lot, then they can do it. But they also have to consider the needs of their family, because sometimes this new job pays less money, and family comes first, I would say.

Thank you so much, thank you so much for this conversation.

Thank you, too.

It was Frederica de Graaf who answering the question “Who are you?” says, “I don’t know.” And we are going to continue painting parsunas of our contemporaries same time next week.