To Love like Christ

Sometime last year, I was watching a documentary on a pair of Siamese twins when my roommate came in. "Oh my God, I don't see how they live," she said, as if it would have been a mercy for them to have died.

I was an atheist then, but still had a little of the lion in me, and replied, "You call yourself a Christian!"

My anger has abated somewhat after upward of six months, realizing with sadness the difficulty with which people comprehend lives different from their own. After all, regarding the Siamese twins, they are otherwise healthy young girls, with a loving, stable family and friends, who excel in school and sports, who do anything any pair of sisters ought. There is a worse thing in life than being physically attached to someone very special to you, and that thing is to not have anyone special at all.

I have tried to love people with no other friends among 6 billion earthly souls, not because they have no friends (for loving someone because they have no friends is as shallow as loving someone because they have many friends) but because they are good. They are fellow suffering pilgrims. If I could love you more I would love you more, if I could give you more, I would give you more. I shall try to love as much and as often as I dare. I want to love the people who no one else loves.

You are my people. You are my people. You are my people.

Lord, let me love my people like Christ loves us. Let them love Christ like Christ loves us. And let me love you too.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

Let me do your will.