T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot: Time past and time future / what might have been and what has been/ point to one end, which is always present.

The text from John is also the one we use on Maundy Thursday: it is part of the farewell discourse of Jesus to his friends. He is concerned about them after his departure. He wants to provide for them. Thus the one command: love one another as I have loved you.

Love is a value we can’t entirely comprehend.

We had the parable of the vine last week, teaching us to be connected to the one source, to be united in the one vine. The church must think we need reminders about the depth and incomprehensible love we are offered. Today is also Mother’s day and it is my experience that Mother’s often repeat themselves, telling us over and over what we should do and what we ought not do.

Mothers come in many varieties. They are our booster rockets: they carry us until we can launch into our own orbit. It is sometimes the case that we recognize the safety they afford; we also pull away from that sheltering wing to try our own wings. It we don’t have a safe and secure base, we are vulnerable, unable to discern whose motives are pure and those that are harmful.  We acquire values, rules of polite society, behavioral norms, as well as fears like adsorbing sponges. We learn what will please her and we learn when to take cover.  Our mothers are arguably the most influential force in shaping us. On Mother’s Day we acknowledge the dedication and persistent love they offer/offered us.  My mother was ever present; she knew where I was before I did. She could have run the CIA because she had scouts everywhere.  She had a strong sense of family and what belonged within the privacy of the family and what was socially worthy of sharing. She was intensely private, an introvert with a very firm sense of right and wrong. My brother and I tried her patience mightily but she never gave up on us. When she was dying one of the last things she said to us was for us to stay together, to stay in touch, to care for and love one another.

While an undergraduate, I decided to major in Chemistry. When I shared this news, my mother was distraught saying; it would cause me to lose my faith. Studying the secrets of nature actually increased my faith. Scientists have a tendency to concentrate on positive data: results that show cause and effect. One of the challenges of moving a new therapy through the clinical evaluation process to obtain FDA approval is to show that it is safe and efficacious. Getting data that show this means having clear difference between people treated with the new drug over those getting something else or nothing. Negative data is not helpful in obtaining approval but it is important in seeing the whole picture. Knowledge as it is acquired is cumulative. Research in one age may find something useful in a totally different context.

Jerome Horwitz  was a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His research interest was cancer and he tested a drug he hoped would be useful in a type of leukemia, but the drug failed his expectations. He filed the data in the university archives and never bothered to patent it. In 1985 GlaxoSmithKline was screening drugs to treat HIV infection and found the cancer failed drug, azidothymidine (AZT). It turned out to be the first approved drug to treat HIV/AIDS. Horwitz got no credit but those who knew him were aware that he was pleased that his greatest failure had been his greatest success.

No doubt there are times when we feel that we have failed, but what we should remember is best articulated in the words of T.S. Eliot: Time past and time future / what might have been and what has been/ point to one end, which is always present.

Love is complicated and while we long for it, offer our version of it, we are aware of its strange forms, illusive patterns, and complex depth. Love, like the divine author of it, is just outside our total comprehension.

What is lost by deletion cannot be corrected because it cannot be found.  Being made in the image of the divine mystery means we are at some level mysteries to ourselves and others. We are one in being beloved sons and daughters of the one who is love. We struggle to love one another as we are loved, but we are called to try: to choose love and unity over all that can divide and separate us from God and one another.  Take time to listen in the silence to the gentle breath of the spirit confirm you in love.

T.S. Eliot: Time past and time future / what might have been and what has been/ point to one end, which is always present.