I Was Just Thinking LOVING MY WAY INTO HEALTH
	JULY/AUGUST 2005

by Don Huntington, Editor In Chief

We must begin to love in order that we may not fall ill, and we must fall ill if, in consequence of frustration, we cannot love. (Sigmund Freud)

Something new has come into my life. I have known for years that I ought to love because love is required from me by the demands of Heaven. Now I also know that I must have love in my heart because Freud says it is the only way I can stay psychologically and emotionally healthy. Perhaps Freud even connected loving to physical health.

It is interesting that Freud's quote does not associate illness with not being loved but, rather, with not loving. My health apparently doesn't have much to do with the question of whether or not I feel that anybody loves me.

I think a lot of wretched people in this world have fallen into the illness that Freud refers to because they feel that the sources of their love have been withdrawn: lovers have left them, parents have harmed them, friends have betrayed them.... They probably feel that they aren't being loved anymore but Freud would apparently say that their real problem, in fact, is that they have stopped loving.

I am not able to begin loving simply because the Bible says I must or because Freud says it is important that I do so. I need a principle of love to enter my life from without — shining into my soul as warm sunshine floods into the darkest recesses of a garden after a long winter — warming my heart and stirring into bloom the seeds of affection, generosity, and (especially) commitment.

I'm so grateful that this is just what I am experiencing these days! Every day I throw open the windows of my soul towards Heaven and every day the brilliance of grace comes flooding in, filling my heart with joy and with love for all God's creatures.

Love that springs from grace has an indomitable quality. I am free because the inflow of grace has filled me to the point that people cannot escape my love. They are able to withdraw so that my love can no longer affect them (they do it all the time), but they are unable to do anything that would lesson my regard for them or cause my commitment to them cease. Even their disdain for me, although it is unpleasant, isn't complicated for me by any unhealthy sense of personal rejection or by any feelings of having been affronted in some way. I love them because I am simply paying forward the love that I have myself received.

My love for Rae, my wife, becomes less anxious and more healthy every year. I've become a one-woman man and that eliminates in a single stroke the difficulty, anger, and anxiety that otherwise would afflict me and drag me down. My relationships are not complex. I'm not looking for anything from other people; not trying to leverage relationships for complicated purposes having to do with vanity, pride, or lust.

I got the following story off the Internet. I think it is true. The story makes me laugh and cry; it fills my heart with hope:

A few years ago, at the Seattle Special Olympics, nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun, they all started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the asphalt, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry.

The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back.

Every one of them.

One girl with Down's Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said: "This will make it better." Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line.

Everyone in the stadium stood, and the cheering went on for several minutes.

I can see grace illustrated so clearly in the love these children showed for each other. It is a presence within me giving me the power to do the things that make me a complete, psychologically healthy human being. Grace provides the ability to eliminate the frustration Freud talked about and, with complete health, hold other people’s hands on the way towards the finish line. Every day! Today!

What a wonderful way to live! What a life! How healthy it feels!