Sep 21.97: Light For The Day - "Tell the World for Me"

Love wasn't put in your heart to stay;
Love isn't love until you give it away. - Anon.

-------------
1John 4:19 (TEV):
"We love, because God first loved us. " 

--------------
"Tell the World for Me" 

............ Tom, who was a student in my "Theology of
Faith", had terminal cancer. He visited me in the
university.

- "Tommy, I hear you are sick?"
* "Oh yes, very sick. I have cancer. It's a matter of
weeks."
- "Can you talk about it?"
* "Sure, what would you like to know?"
- "What's it like to be 24 and know you are dying?"
* "When the doctor told me I had terminal cancer, I
really started searching for God and Heaven. But
nothing happened. Well, one day I woke up, and
instead of throwing a few more futile appeals to a God
who may or may not exit, I just quit. I decided I didn't
care about God and the afterlife -- or anything else for
that matter.

I decided to spend what time I had left doing something
more profitable. I thought about you and something
you had said in one of your lectures:

' The essential sadness is to go through life without loving.
But it would be equally sad to leave this world without
telling those you love that you have loved them. '

So I began with the hardest one; my dad.

He was reading the newspaper when I approached him. 
' Dad, I would like to talk to you. ' Well talk,' he replied.
' I mean, it's really important Dad.' The newspaper
came down three slow inches. ' What is it? ' he asked. 
' Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that. '

The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father
did two things I couldn't remember him doing before.
He cried and he hugged me. And we talked all night
even though he had to go to work the next day.

It was easier with my mom and little brother. They
cried with me, too, and we hugged each other and
shared things we had been keeping secret for so
many years. I was only sorry that I had waited so
long. Here I was, in the shadow of death, and I was
just beginning to open up to all the people I had
actually been close to.

Then one day I turned around and God was there. He
didn't come to me when I pleaded with him. Apparently,
God does things His own way at His own hour. The
important thing is He found me even after I stopped
looking for him. "

- "Tommy," I gasped, "I think you're saying something
much more universal than you realize. You are saying
that the surest way of finding God is not to make him a
private possession or an instant consolation in time of
need, but rather by opening up to love,

Tom, could I ask you a favor? Would you come to my
'Theology of Faith' class and tell my students what you
just told me? "

Though we scheduled a date, he never made it. Of course,
his life was not really ended by his death, it was only
changed. He made the great step from faith into vision.
He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has
ever seen or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before Tom died, we talked one last time.

* " I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.
- " I know, Tom."
* " Will you tell them for me? Will you tell . . .
the whole world for me?"
- " I will Tom. I will tell them."

- John Powell

----------
"Love never fails. ...." - 1Corinthians 13:8 (NIV)

We love in another's soul
whatever of ourselves
we can deposit in it;
the greater the deposit,
the greater the love.
- Irving Layton -
-