But the Greatest of These is Charity

Today is Father's Day (ok, I'm counting it because it's 11:18 pm the night before, but it's close enough).  It is also the six-month anniversary of my Dad's passing.  I wanted to write a short post for my Dad today.  But before I get to that, I wanted to mention one thing that happened this past week.  On Monday, my Mom hosted a bridal shower for my beautiful Ashley.  It was a beautiful occasion that brought together a lot of the wonderful women in my family.  I was honored to see how many of them had come to celebrate with my Ashley--most of them never having met her before.  And then when the time came for Ashley to open the gifts, both Ashley and I were absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity and love of these amazing women.

Since the shower, others have also generously sent us beautiful items for which we are very grateful.  I confess that the gifts are the thing about marriage that are the hardest for me to accept.  I love each of them, but often feel wholly unworthy of such incredible generosity.  I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to each of you for the blessing that you are in my life.  Each of you has given me a gift of time, friendship, service, and especially love.  I'm reminded of Paul's phrase, "But the greatest of these is charity" (1 Corinthians 13:13).  It is this gift which each of you has given most readily, and for which I am likely most unworthy.  But please know how very grateful I am for your generous bestowals.

This gift is something that my Dad possessed in enormous quantities.  As I've reflected on my Dad in recent months, my admiration of him has grown immensely.  In many ways, I'm not sure I fully appreciated the enormity of my Dad's greatness while he was alive.  Sadly, this is so often the case with the great ones; it takes their passing for us to grasp just how great a man or woman had walked among us.  It was only at the end of the evening that the two disciples on the Emmaus Road grasped who had walked with them, asking "Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32)  At the end of his life, Joseph Smith uttered that famous phrase, "You never knew my heart[;] no man knows my hist[ory]."  Because it is never flashy or self-aggrandizing, it often takes time for us to come to a recognition of true greatness. And my Dad was truly great.

I am convinced that above all else, the thing that made my Dad a great man was his ability to love.  Dad learned to love others in a way that many people never achieve.  While most people--like myself--want to love others upon our own terms and conditions, my Dad discovered how to love people on their terms and conditions; loving them in the way that they needed to be loved, rather than loving them in the way that was easiest for him to love.  This gave Dad the ability to reach people from multiple walks of life and to love them.

It is easy to love people that seem to offer us some sort of advantages in exchange for our love.  In other words, it is easy to bestow effusive praise and love on those that we think may be able to help us get places in this world.  But this kind of quid pro quo relationship is not love.  My Dad didn't think in terms of who could get him places in this world.  He thought about who he could reach out to, who he could bless, who he could build.  As a result, Dad placed little value in the titles that we hold so dear in this world.  Whether someone was a doctor, a superintendent, a principal, a secretary, a teacher, or a janitor wasn't what mattered to my Dad.  What mattered to him was that they were people with hopes, dreams, worries, concerns, and potential.  What mattered to him was that they were his friends.  And all of Dad's friends deserved his time, love, and effort.

My Dad was great because he resisted the temptation to let the titles before and the initials after a name define the man or woman, and whether they were worth his attention.  Dad was great because he saw the potential within people as well as their pains, struggles, and present status.  No matter where they were, he believed that they could become great and that he had an obligation to help them achieve that greatness.  Truly, there "abideth faith, hope, and charity; but the greatest of these is charity."

Brett