"Love" Timothée Bordenave France

 

Timothee Bordenave is a French author and a visual artist. He has published many books already along with numerous articles and web posts. He has also presented many art shows. Both in France and abroad !

His literary works have often been translated in various different languages. 

He lives and works in France, in Paris or at the countryside… 

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This short text here under, extracted from my « Christian Aphorisms » for your honorable consideration.

It is like a « glose » upon the Christian conception of love, after the famous words of Jesus : « Love your fellow as your self and love the Lord above all else… »

Love !

"Love your fellow as yourself, and love God above all else; this is the whole of the Law."

These words of Jesus, addressed to an erudite priest, are a direct quote from the Mosaic Law as transmitted to him by the rabbinic teachings he knew by heart. We find the same phrase today in the Hebrew Torah, then in the Old Testament, and of course also the New Testament, in Christian Bibles.

Indeed: the wise man cannot but agree; this maxim, this motto, is both clear and, in a few words, says absolutely everything our religions can contribute as useful precepts to our lives. This is true first and foremost if we consider Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam, and then, at least I think so and I want to share it, if we consider, through syncretism or ecumenism, all the sacred doctrines of which we have any knowledge.

Loving one's fellows implies respecting them, and even more so, not causing them harm. Loving them as oneself implies, on the one hand, that one must consider them as one's equal, and then that one must also love, respect, and consider himself or herself well.

Loving God more than anything could mean putting the importance of our lives into perspective and living them with respect, consideration, and devotion to this primordial and universal will that we traditionally call God: infinite wisdom, infinite intelligence, and transcendence, both immanent and eternal, by which all things were made, which is far more than we can know or conceive. In other words, far more than anything.

The immeasurable size of the Heavens, bearers of countless stars, when compared to our life and our awareness of it, as well as the infinity of perceptions or facts that we know exist closer to us, in our environment, presuppose that the idea of ​​God, believed to be the ordering force of this entire Cosmos, as we have said, is even greater. Thus, the Divine Being is beyond this whole, and also present in each of its parts.

It then seems very reasonable, logical, and appropriate to want to love this God who is at once omnipresent, invisible or imperceptible, and logically much more intelligent than the whole he governs. To love him simply, celebrating him and respecting his existence, which we can only suppose: pre-existing our own and infinite, his necessary cause as well as his absolute ideal.

This implies a true humility for our minds, which allows us to better understand what we experience, both for our morality and the usefulness of our actions. Being humble also allows us to distance ourselves from lies, from despise, or not to hate what may be close to us, different, or problematic. Instead, we would benefit to cultivate good values ​​such as tolerance and respect, kindness, politeness, and a spirit of service, for example, mutual aid, generosity, etc. These are all seeds of wisdom.

Being more aware of one's place, more humble and temperate makes us gentler, more pleasant, but also stronger in what we undertake and in what we do, because we better define our approach. While our love for God, stronger than anything else, also gives us a great self-confidence, and of course, a consistent love for the World !

 

T.B. France, Assat - Pyrenees.

25.X. Faithful.