Is This the Path of Love?
3 Ps on Sabbath: A Poem, A Pondering, A Practice
A Poem: The Question
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
for Jude Jordan Kalush, who asked the question
All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of these words as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path of love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this?
Is this the path of love? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.
From All the Honey by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and The Path to Kindness, edited by James Crews
Amazing how quickly six words become compass…
A Pondering: Time is Love
We live in a “time is money” world. In a world like this, time feels hard, combative, oppositional. It also feels scarce. To say “time is money” is a linguistic reflection of how we’ve conflated our relationship with time and with money into a singular experience of lack. We feel like we never have enough money, so we do more to make more, which means we never have enough time, which drives our commitment to speed. As Judith Shulevitz observed, “when time is money, speed equals more of it.”
Does moving faster actually improve our lives, though? Does an uncritical acceptance of a time-is-money approach translate into a deeper sense of joy, connection, and well-being in our lives? Will moving faster and doing more lead us to the life we want to live, and will it form us into the person we want to be in the world? John Mark Comer recently quoted John Ortberg quoting Dallas Willard who said: “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life” (Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, 19). The question, of course, is how?
What if we started with a different metaphor for time, a metaphor steeped in the character and values of Sabbath instead of the marketplace? What if, instead of an economic metaphor that sped our life up, we embraced a relational one that slowed us down and helped us be more present? What if time is love?
A time-is-love approach is slow instead of fast, at ease instead of hurried, abundant instead of scarce, kind instead of cruel. “Time is love” is invitational and personal, it is inherently abundant. Love has all the time in the world.
What might it look like to live beyond a time-is-money approach and embrace a time-is-love approach? This is where Rosemerry’s remarkable poem comes in.
Her poem’s question, “Is this the path of love?” is the best way I know to live into a time-is-love posture. Ask yourself at any given moment, Is this the path of love? Ask it every day, multiple times a day. When you’re scanning Instagram during a colleague’s presentation at work, ask yourself, Is this the path of love? When your child is once again daydreaming instead of getting ready to leave and you once again respond in ways that escalate the tension, ask yourself, Is this the path of love? When you feel the conflict between getting more work done and being present to your family, your friends, or yourself, ask yourself, Is this the path of love? When you say yes when you want to say no, or no when you want to say yes, ask yourself, Is this the path of love? When you are exhausted but feel guilty resting instead of being productive, ask yourself, Is this the path of love?
As the poem makes clear, the ultimate question is not Is this right or wrong? That question won’t get us very far in exploring the path of love. The answer may be “no,” as in, “What I am doing is not the path of love.” But that is different than saying it’s “wrong,” which is a moral judgment void of curiosity and nuance. The right/wrong framework is native to a time-is-money mindset.
It is possible that we may feel shame or anger at ourselves upon realizing we have chosen a path other than the path of love. But even that is an opportunity to ask ourselves, Is this the path of love? Is beating myself up over this or that choice the path of love? Is cutting myself off from participating in the life happening around me the path of love? Is telling myself the same old story about not being good enough or always making the wrong decision putting me on the path of love?
When Jesus said the two greatest commandments were to love God and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39), part of what he meant was, “If you don’t truly love yourself, you cannot truly love your neighbor.” Walking the path of loving ourselves is the foundation for walking the path of loving each other.
This is adapted from Chapter 7 of The Sabbath Way.
A Sabbath Practice: Walk the Path of Love
Write Rosemerry’s poem on a 3x5 card or large Post-It note. Take a picture of it and set it as the lock screen on your phone. Then put the poem in your pocket or your purse, or stick it to your computer or monitor or mirror—somewhere you’ll see or feel it regularly throughout the day.
Each time you see it or feel it, pull it out and read it. Allow the reminder of the poem to be an invitation to slow down for just a few seconds—the poem takes 30-60 seconds to read—and become present. Then, allow the reading of the poem to remind you to ask yourself the question: Is this the path of love? Whatever you’re doing at that moment—it literally doesn’t matter what you’re doing—ask yourself if the way you’re doing it resonates with the path of love. Ask yourself if the action of your existence is connecting you to the path of love. Then listen to the answer.
That’s it. That’s the practice. Ask yourself repeatedly throughout the day, Is this the path of love? And then see what happens.
