Click below to listen to this story about love on the Candidly Kendra podcast:
Lee Lorch was one of the earliest civil rights activists. He was a man who gave up his own comfortable job in Manhattan to fight for the end of housing discrimination. Later he moved to the south, and as a white man, he taught mathematics at black universities, making every possible effort to give black men and women opportunities to step into their potential as mathematicians. He mentored some of the first black men and women to earn PhDs in Mathematics.
During an interview when he was 94 years old (in 2010) the interviewer asked Lorch what he would do differently if he had the chance. Lorch replied that he would do “more and better of the same.”
“More and Better of the Same”
(Source http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/special/lorch-lee.html)
I would consider it a great success to come to the end of my life and say that I would only wish to spend my life doing “more and better of the same.”
How could I spend my life now so that this would be something I could say later?
I think the answer is love.
“Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13
In the end, the greatest thing that we can do on earth that spills over into eternity is love.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:36-39 NIV
We can love our God. We can pursue him, seek to know him, learn about him and honor him.
More and better of the same.
We can love our families. We can put our relationship with our kids over the cleanliness of the living room. We can enjoy the company of our husbands, choosing to set aside the little annoyances. We can delight in these people God has gifted to us.
More and better of the same.
We can love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can bear with them, we can forgive. We can serve.
More and better of the same.
We can love our communities. By faith we can love the unloveable. We can honor and serve those who are different from us.
More and better of the same.
But God knows that I will fail if I try to love well by my own will and power.
Father, forgive me for my critical and unloving heart. Forgive me that I don’t want to forgive. Father, please help me to love the world with your love.
Note: Lee Lorch was a role model in his sacrificial service for the good of others. But, like everyone else I know, he wasn’t perfect. He had some other ideas about how our government should run that I strongly disagree with. Please don’t take this article highlighting his civil rights successes as a blanket approval of his beliefs or actions.
See Also
