Welcome to our series on loving others: Practically Impractical in So Many Ways, notes to myself as I take steps (the faith and hope-filled, clumsy and imperfect kind) in loving others in practical (and impractical) ways.
Can you hear it? Listen closely…
Word associations still run very strong in these veins and this brain, so of course Mary Poppins’ Practically Perfect in Every Way was the inspiration behind the series title.
Speaking of inspiration, on a side note that has absolutely nothing to do with this series: it would be oh so supercalifragilisticexpialidocious if you let me know whether you heard the reference before I pointed it out. (On another irrelevant side note, I was pleasantly surprised when I only missed the spelling of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious by one letter on my first try typing it out. Yes, that was my inner word nerd high-fiving herself.)
practically - almost, nearly
impractical - not practical, unrealistic, unattainable
Sounds about right in regards to loving others, Merriam-Webster. The practice of loving others is not practical. It’s hard-to-reach, out of the way, and so unapproachable at times. Practically impractical in so many ways.
I’m sure time will tell if there’s some other connection between this series and Mary Poppins’ famous self-description, but for now we’ll just chalk it up to my love for word association.
And speaking of love, that’s kind of how this current series came about.
Several years ago, the word love triggered a word association rabbit trail study of 1 Corinthians 13. It all started with a question:
It’s a question I’d been asking for years, with a Google doc I started in 2019 filled with musings based on heart-shaped leaves to prove it. That Google doc and my love series eventually turned into this:
In addition to commentaries on the book of Corinthians, The Love Journal by Scott Andrew Williams was a welcome companion on my journey. It wasn’t specific to 1 Corinthians 13, but focused instead on a yearlong study of the Great Commandment using the entire New Testament and the Psalms.
A two-page list towards the end of the book caught my eye:
What would it look like to try and work my way through this list?
Two years later and it’s finally time to find out.
What to expect:
words about the practically impractical ways the different list items show up as I wrestle through the struggles/victories/reality that will always accompany loving others
hoping to engage in minimal editing of my thoughts on any given list item and my response to it, creating space for some stream of consciousness wordsmithery to flow, and yet another step towards continued recovery as a people-pleasing perfectionist :-)
link love with the words and work of others that may resonate with a particular list item
maybe some poetry
Why it matters?
Loving others is practically impractical in so many ways. Why bother?
“My commandment is this - to love one another just as I have loved you.” John 15:12
Because when loving me was practically impractical, Love loved me first.
Because the definition of love said so, and that’s good enough for me.
Until next time,
Becky