Love rocks.

I spent a chunk of today proof-reading a book which is due to be published in – I think – May. It’s about writing, specifically about writing drama. As I re-read my introduction to the thorny subject of talent, I realised that with just a little tweak and replacing the word ‘talent’ it becomes a picture of love.

Talent is the human spirit reaching out, hungry to connect, to understand and to be understood, to shed pretence and reveal the truth of who we are. To look beyond the visible and tangible to the eternal. Talent is vulnerable. It demands that the artist, writer, musician invites rejection with everything they do. Talent is not an easy lover. It’s demanding, relentless and exhausting. But it’s precious and the greatest gift of all.

I think it struck me because I had just read an email from my son-in-law, humorously calling his three girls by numbers rather than tapping out the whole name. No1 was in Uni, No2 was at work and No3 is spending the day with her cousin. He was marvelling at the passing years and that the eldest is now 20… ‘20 years!’ he wrote, ‘That feels so BIG.’ And so I sent him a photo of our girls when they were tiny and as I pressed ‘send’ I had a lump in my throat. His response was immediate ‘Tears in my eyes’. My son-in-law is the dearest father to his girls, a great big softie, but at the same time he’s their rock. I paused to say a quick thank you to God for him and then, straight away, returning to my proof-reading, I read that paragraph, and did that mental tweak and the word-flip.

Selfless love is the human spirit reaching out, hungry to connect, to understand and to be understood, to shed pretence and reveal the truth of who we are. To look beyond the visible and tangible to the eternal. Selfless love is vulnerable. It demands that we invite rejection with everything we do. Selfless love is not easy. It’s demanding, relentless and exhausting. But it’s precious and the greatest gift of all.

Sometimes those who are not Christian are the greatest examples of selfless love to us selfish Christians.