The commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength has enough beautiful complexity in it to call for an integrating reflection on love in its simplicity.
The 10:42 video and podcast episode represent an experiment in staying in the simplicity of loving God as I discourse about the complexities of the commandment. The experiment was only partly successful, but I learned a lesson as a result: Having probed the complexities of living in truth, beauty, and goodness, I regard love as the way of simplicity. Simplicity is enriched by containing complexity within itself, but when it decays into complexity without the unifying simplicity, it is no longer love.
In my video, I used the following excerpts from the current draft of a chapter on love.
With all our heart—the way of simplicity. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Imagine an ox wearing a yoke and pulling a plough through dry, hard, rocky ground. But yoke two oxen together, and it’s a different experience. Imagine Jesus yoked with you. When we experience the spiritual life as a heavy burden, something has gone wrong. When we turn and find friendship in the spirit, the ground is still hard and dry, the rocks have not been removed, but everything feels different. And sometimes spiritual experience dissolves rocks.
With all our the soul, illustrated by the quality of expression in the Book of Psalms.
The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm,
and all of them are righteous.
They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.
By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
With all our mind. (This is the place where I lost my simplicity in the video.)
Jesus’ commandments do many things:
- Give clarity and direction for daily life
- Express faith in what we can do and be
- Reveal the will of God
- Invigorate us by their strong, bracing attitude, calling forth the supreme motivation of the soul
- Imply that the rewards of following it are better than the consequences of rejecting it
- Promise support every step of the way
With all our strength.
To love God with all our strength refers primarily, I believe, to energies of the body. But it takes courage of mind and spirit to mobilize these energies, and spiritual power is also an aspect of our strength. When I speak of mobilizing our powers, I use a military metaphor. To mobilize means to call up troops and ready them for battle. Having interacted with theater actors, especially right after a performance of an uplifting Shakespeare play, I have often seen the warmth and vigor of their heightened and still-surging energies. If they can mobilize themselves so beautifully to play a character that is not who they are, how much more should we mobilize ourselves to be who we truly are, and to play the role to which God calls us.
