Summer seems to be drawing to a close and autumn seems only around the corner
as I write this article. What summer I hear some of you say!
During my own summer holiday in Perthshire, I read a few books (not as many as I
sometimes do) and one of them was called SOMEHOW (Thoughts on Love) by Anne
Lamott. I had hardly finished this exploration of the transformative power of love
when the tragic events of Southport unfolded, quickly followed by the violent
disorder throughout our nation. I was reminded of the Prayer of St. Francis of
Assisi by a colleague:
“Lord make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
And where there is sadness, joy.
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive-
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it’s in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.”
which seemed an appropriate prayer for the circumstances. In the face of fear
and hate, love must come to the fore. That then set me thinking of a story I once
read from the 1930s. Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor of New York city during the
worst days of the Great Depression and all of World War 2. He was called “The
Little Flower” by adoring New Yorkers because he was only five foot tall and
always wore a carnation in his lapel. A colourful character who could be seen riding
on city fire engines, taking entire orphanages to baseball games and reading jokes
to kids on the radio when the newspapers were on strike.
One bitterly cold night in January 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that
served the poorest district of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the
evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old
woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told
LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was ill, and
her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread
was stolen, refused to drop the charges. “It’s a bad neighbourhood, Your Honour,”
the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around
here a lesson.”
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, “I’ve got to punish you. The
law makes no exceptions – ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he
pronounced the sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He
extracted a note and tossed it into his famous sombrero, saying, “Here is the ten
dollar fine, which I now remit; and furthermore, I am going to fine everyone in this
courtroom 50 cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that
her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the
defendant.”
So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was
given to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving
grandchildren, 50 cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced
grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic
offences, and New York city policemen, each of whom had just paid 50 cents for
the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
Food for thought. Somehow a thought on the transformative power of love. In the
face of fear and hate, love must come to the fore. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers
us good news, a better way of living and loving. Together let’s try to put that faith
into practice and be the transforming power of love our world so clearly needs and
yearns for in these days.