Fresh Air

            But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. (I Timothy 1:5-7)

          There are people who turn aside to fruitless discussion, who think they understand basic truths. Curiously, not long after those “wise philosophers” propound their vision of the universe, someone else comes along and either improves on it or rejects it as so much poppycock. That wouldn’t be bad if each time we got closer to the truth, but it seems to me that they are addressing the symptoms of the universe, rather than the nature.

          What does Paul suggest as our alternative? Love. Not sentimentality (which someone has described as love without truth,) but love, dedication to promoting the well-being of others. True well-being doesn’t focus on the circumstances as much as it does on the subject. There are some who complain about people sending their thoughts and prayers to those whose circumstances are less than ideal. Far better, they say, that we should fix the circumstances.

          The problem is that we don’t often know circumstances as well as we’d like. We make assumptions that we would not like our circumstances to be so and set about to change the circumstances. I’ve read that clothes sent to aid the Katrina victims were treated like garbage because the people didn’t really need clothes. Clothes sent to east Africa destroyed the East African textile industry. Thoughts and prayers can lead us to make better decisions about how we help. They aren’t in lieu of other actions, just in advance of foolish actions that do little to no good.

           Paul describes the sort of love he’s talking about with three characteristics. First, love must be from a pure heart. Pure hearts are no more about sentimentality than love is. The easy part of the pure heart equation is the heart. Heart equals will, but that’s where it gets complex. For how long is a will pure? We start out wanting to help someone. That’s great. Then someone else shows up who has a different idea for how to help, and “I want to help” gets mixed with “I want it my way.” Or someone says something positive about your helping, and “I want to help” gets mixed with “See what a good person I am?” There are also people who say they want to help, but their goal isn’t the well-being of the person being helped, it’s the advancement of an agenda. Having a pure heart/will isn’t an easy thing. Additional motives can get in the way, sometimes without our noticing.

          The second characteristic of the love that is our goal is a good conscience. This is a tough one, too. Conscience has to do with doing the right thing for the right reasons. A few years ago, I finally heard the saying, “If you want an omelet, you have to break some eggs.” In the context of the story, progress required someone else’s sacrifice. So what if a few little folks must suffer so that I achieve my greater vision? Cutting corners won’t hurt in the long-run.

          It’s easy to move from “I want to help this person” to shady dealing that might help but also harm, or might help one by harming another, especially if the other is viewed as deserving the harm. What can possibly be wrong from taking money from the rich who won’t even need it to help the poor? The rich should be more than willing to help out. But if they are not, does that justify forcing them to help? Does it especially justify forcing them to help out in the way that you decide they should help? Is it acting in good conscience if you knowingly cut corners?

          The third characteristic is a sincere faith. This is no easier than the others. Some folks talk about being sincere. They really feel however they say they feel until maintaining that level of emotion takes too much effort. The term sincere comes from the sale of pottery. Some folks rubbed wax into the tiny cracks in their wares, to trick the buyer into thinking the product was good. Supposedly, if one held the object up to the light, one could see the damage, but merchants, being merchants, took to advertising their pottery as being sin-, without, -cere, wax.

          What does faith without wax, or without cracks, look like? What sort of love comes from such a faith? The first thing that comes to mind is that cracks are the result of two things: weakness and stress. When some weak things undergo stress and crack, they’re destroyed. Other things that stressed actually grow stronger as a result. I believe faith is one of those things. Certainly, it can be damaged, and perhaps damaged beyond repair. In general, though, I suspect that it is not too much stress that destroys faith, but too little. With strong faith, any cracks that form heal, possibly in part because of the stress applied.

          So, love… with a pure will (no ulterior motives), a clean conscience (no cutting corners), and a sincere faith (that can stand up to the stresses of life.) It sounds like a breath of fresh air. The sort of fresh air the world needs.