Actions Trump Words

When I took the dog for a walk through the neighborhood yesterday,  I happened to notice a festive fall wreath on the front door of one particularly unfriendly couple's home.  Upon closer examination (which meant my peering at the door from practically across the street, since a canine's errant treading of  paws upon their perfectly manicured lawn elicits anger and threats to both owner and pet), I was able to make out the word Welcome on a little sign affixed to the wreath.  Welcome. Really?  That's ironic, I thought to myself, as I gave wide berth to their property and made my way on down the street.  

But before my feet had hit my driveway, it dawned on me that, on any given day, I'm also guilty of saying one thing while conveying something shockingly different by my actions.   

I have loved etymology ever since I took an intro to Linguistics in college.  Last year I learned that the term holy originates from the same root word as whole.  That discovery offered me a new-and-improved way to think about God in His wholeness - as the One Who is fully integrated within Himself.  God, the perfect integer.  Jesus, the Son, who lived out a life of perfect wholeness in his humanity as communicated via the Gospels.  Jesus, who lived as he spoke and who spoke as he lived.  

Whole.
Integrated.
Holy.

Yet, for a couple of years, my tow-headed boy would go on to bear the brunt of my un-holiness, my fractured thinking, my stumbling and bumbling inability to align my words and my actions surrounding his truth telling.

His ears would go on to register the I love you coming from my mouth, yet his heart would grapple with the unspoken but well communicated but spawned by my actions.  

I love you BUT let's look into reparative therapy (I don't love this part of you) +

I love you BUT let's keep this a secret (I don't love this part of you) +

I love you BUT let's beg God to fix this (I don't love this part of you) =

I don't love you.


Love the sinner but hate his sin is a lie.  But I couldn't see that, then.  I had mud in my eyes. Like the blind man whose sight Jesus was in the process of restoring, I saw people "like trees walking around," which is not seeing people at all. 

I saw through a glass darkly.  

It would be a while, still.