First Love Phase Three: “You have forsaken the love you had at first. “

This posting represents my third line of thought, prompted by the “First Love” theme of the “GBE 2: Blog On” weekly challenge. My other two can be found below this one.

The 'First love' line is not in my NIV Bible, but the exact phrasing is in Revelation 2:4 of the King James Version. If you are not familiar with the passage, let me fill you in a bit.

The Apostle John had been exiled to the island of Patmos by the Roman authorities. Little did they know that Jesus Christ could reach him there, but He did. All 22 chapters of this incredible book are John's description of an elaborate prophetic vision given to him by God. Chapters two and three contain seven messages that Christ dictates for John to write down and send to seven prominent churches actually located in Asia minor. In each letter Jesus commends the body of believers in a particular area regarding some of the things they are doing right, and then reprimands their stand or their behavior where it is off track. Only the church in Smyrna escapes any rebuke.

These two short chapters of scripture are of great interest to the modern church because they are written with very specific encouragement and/ or warning, to people just like us. We are so like them, just people who have become Christians after acknowledging the need for a savior, and finding the only One who can forgive us; Jesus Christ. As we align with local congregations and follow the leadership of particular people, we may either be taught well and mature in the faith, or take a misguided path away from solid Biblical teaching (like that foolish group who bring shame to Christ by claiming to follow Him, but disgustingly protest at soldiers' funerals).

The church at Ephesus gets the first letter. The people there are commended for their hard work and perseverance, for their intolerance of wicked people, their determination to test those who would teach them, and for their endurance under hardship. But Jesus goes on to express His great distress that the Ephesian Christians “have forsaken the love you had at first.” He tells them to “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. Do you see what I mean about how powerfully relevant these verses can be to us today? What church, what Christian, what older married man or woman has not in some way forsaken their first love?

Of course the early emotions do wane, and probably could not be healthily maintained at their youthful zeal for the long term; but the real essence of unselfish devotion and self-sacrifice for the loved one should not be allowed to diminish, or be replaced by anything else. This is more true in our relationship with God through His Son, than anywhere else because only God's perfect love for us is pure and unpolluted by ulterior motives. Our love response to Him should not only be exuberant, but absolute.

Do you 'have ears'? Because at the end of each letter to each church, this admonition is given: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

First Love Phase Two: Those THINGS That Make Me Smile

Continuing to list my 'first loves', I will now remember the world of things. In this context, my favorite things are of several types; not just tangible items that recall positive feelings, but maybe activities, or sights or even sounds.  Let's see.

My four older brothers had long since conspired to wreck the full scale train set they had so thoroughly enjoyed as kids, so by the time I was old enough to play with it, all I found was a cardboard box with a bunch (but not enough) of track, a few cool looking train cars (some without wheels) and a big old transformer that was rumored to have operated the whole thing. I remember studying those rather realistic plastic cars. There were box cars and a car hauling car and a flat car and a couple of really heavy (but useless) engines. I never had enough track to make even a complete circle, but I would connect what I had and set the dual sets of wheels ever so carefully on the rails. If one wheel was offset the thing would not budge, but I loved the satisfaction of getting all 8 wheels in their proper place. With just a little push that car would then glide so smoothly all the way to where my imaginary workmen (funny how they looked like little green army men) were repairing the tracks! A train car is no more than a bothersome roadblock when off its track, but when in its right place, fitting and connected, it serves a grand purpose. I still love putting things together successfully. When all the pieces fit, when the light switch actually works or when the pipe's connections don't leak? Gotta love it!

I loved watching the wandering light beams from street traffic bounce across my bedroom ceiling. We lived on a 'busy street' on Chicago's south side. When a car came from the east, its lights would come in our north facing window to shine on the western wall long before I could hear the car coming. As the vehicle approached I was mesmerized as the light slowly crept up the angled part of the ceiling and then suddenly dashed over, and dimmed going down the eastern wall. Throw in a light splash and spray if the street were wet with rain, and the light show was complete. Simple pleasures for a simple boy.

Only a winter or so ago now, I suddenly remembered that when I was a kid, I loved walking to school early in the morning after a light snow. But only because in that circumstance I could walk right in the tire tracks of the few cars that had been out before me and had left a perfect path. If the line I was following was not going to my school; no problem, another one would have intersected mine so I could readily continue on my way by 'switching tracks'. The best feeling though, was to be tracing a tire tread that turned when I wanted it to, and I could take the curve by leaning into it and providing my own screechy tire noises. Sorry, if you were in one of the cars waiting for that stupid kid to get off the street when you were trying to drive to work, but the only drawback for me was that I got to school so fast on those mornings!

I loved sitting on my front porch on a summer's day keeping track of all the numbered traffic. Did you know that police cars and taxis and city buses, at least in the 1960's, all had prominent four digit numbers posted on their sides? I would sit there for hours with a pen and note book, keeping a careful log of each sighting: Vehicle type and number, direction, time. It was all there.  Buses, of course, went back and forth on 59^th street all day, so each one made a regular appearance. Police cars might stay in certain patterns, but diverged at the whim of local bad guys, and taxis never even tried to put order in my records. Now I wonder if my Mom put this whole 'sitting on the porch for hours' thing in motion. I loved the whole analysis thing, but she probably loved it too.

You might be shaking your head already at the weird things that this Chicago kid 'loved',  but it gets worse. When I finally left the city and ended up in a high school seminary boarding school, I found a new love. It's one that still clicks some pleasure node deep in my simple brain. The rural school was isolated in the middle of the thickly wooded sand dunes of lower Michigan's western lake shore, and when I began to hear a sound that I had probably never heard before in Chicago, it made a great impression. I never knew what bird it was, and only years later did I discover that I am not 'supposed' to even like it. But the truth is,  this kid still LOVES all the raucous sounds made by your basic Blue Jay!

First Love Phase One: The Classics

There are so many ways to go with this week's theme. The first reaction I had to “First Love” was, of course, to look back through the romantic mists of time and try to recall some of the early crushes, infatuations and dreamy fantasies that befell me when I was a young man; but that's the problem—I'm a man, so I don't have any of those silly memories! NOT! I do. I admit it. And I will relate at least in brief, a few of those, though much to my embarrassment.

Another course I thought I'd take would be to list some of the THINGS I remember loving from way back when. An attempt at gathering a few of the things that really made me smile inside, and still do; again, to my sometime embarrassment. Yes, I'll embarrass myself. This is a blog after all, and it is required that we do that to ourselves at least twice a month right?

But you may have predicted that I would find some Biblical route to take with this theme. But I seem to be bent on being preachy. (Much to my embarrassment again? May be.) But I think you'll like this one! But I always think that! But how many sentences in one paragraph can one start with the word 'but'? So, I think I will start with the classic 'first loves' and post those alone. Later this week, I will post again and maybe again on my other ideas.

The Classics

Fifth grade, maybe sixth, I remember going on to the local public school's playground on the way home from my Catholic school. It seems there was a skating rink (big frozen puddle) in there and it was fun to run and slide on. But here comes Karen Greenys chasing me! I was running for my life and Karen was chasing me with arms wide open and screaming my name and making loud kissing noises! I remember being terrified but I don't remember running out of breath, or getting a stitch in my side, or any of the 4 or 5 blocks I passed in getting home! In case you didn't figure it out folks: Karen was a girl! Good thing she disappeared from my school after that year!

For eighth grade, I transferred to a different Catholic school 4 blocks on the other side of my house, and guess who was there, oh so eager to ignore her old flame? Karen Greenys indeed, and I believe she truly forgot all about our icy affair. Good thing they assigned me a seat by Cindy Pac in my new home room. She was a doll and I wished SHE would have chased me around the block. I might have been a litle slower to run at that point and I'm sure she would have caught me. Alas, I waited all year for her to make her move. Nothing. Eighth grade girls are so darn mature! Finally, I put a charm bracelet in a book on her desk during the last day of school...and then ran for my life again.

High school? Yeah right. If you looked at my little biography you would have seen that I went to an all boy's boarding school. So you know what that means: all of my embarrassing 'first love' stories happened during the summer months! If you really want to learn about those, you can read this article I wrote this past January.