Thoughts on Truth, Love, and Happiness.

From the author of Letters to Christopher.

I hesitate to embarrass the man by linking to another of his posts - he writes eloquently and beautifully on the subject of same sex attraction and fidelity to Catholic teaching on sexuality.  I try to write on the same subject, but I'm not able to do so with nearly as much sensitivity and charity.  Indeed, I've read comments on other sites where my name comes up and people have referred to Abbey Roads as "that horror of a blog".  LOL!  It reminded me of the line from As Good As It Gets when Simon referred to Melvin as an "absolute horror of a man".  I actually deserve the title because I'm such a dork - my humor is inappropriate and tacky, my comments can be sarcastic and mean, and I'm not the smartest writer online.  I'm too aggressive and lack sensitivity towards others who disagree or misunderstand what I'm trying to say.  Ah - worst of all - I make everything all about me.  Please accept my apologies - especially those of you whom I offended this past week or so.

That said, without the author's permission, I reprint here a few key points from his essay, Truth, Love, and Happiness - please read the entire post after the following excerpt:

The question that I always come back to when it is concerning love is this: what does it mean, to truly love another? Is love whatever we say it is? It seems that the definition of love we have now has essentially become exactly that. I say what love is, and no matter what that looks like, then it is love, because I define it as such. C. S. Lewis wrote about St. Augustine’s view of love and virtue this way, in Abolition of Man: “St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it.” The classic definition of love in Christian philosophy through the ages has been, “to love is to will the good of the other,” which is akin with Christ’s definition, loving others as we would love ourselves. The caveat, in that, of course, is that we don’t always love ourselves in the ways in which we would if we could see ourselves through the eyes of God.

The call to love, I’ve become convinced, must be determined not by our particular concepts of love, or the way others may want us to show love to them, because in some cases, to acquiesce to the way some want to be loved is to actually not love them at all. I will tell you this: I recently went to a priest (I’m Catholic) and out of compassion, he told me to find a man and settle down with him, so that I can be happy. That was not love, though the priest believed he was loving me. His compassion towards me, and my loneliness, was not love, in the truest sense, since I know that my subjective concept of what I think might bring me earthly happiness is not the way that I will be happy, ultimately. Some aspects of my life which make me unhappy could be mitigated: I could have a companion to come home to, other than my dog; I could have a sexually active life and enjoy that aspect of the human existence; I could have someone to travel with and plan my life, but ultimately, those forms of happiness are not worth the cost of disobeying God.

God says no to us, and to me, in particular, because he loves me. The younger generation needs to understand that God’s commandments lead us to the blessed life, and one of the hallmarks of showing our love for God, as Jesus told us, is to “keep his commandments.” If you are a Christian with LGBTQ friends, and you urge them on in believing that God is “Side A,” or ever has been “Side A” concerning this subject, you’re not doing them any favors. You’re urging them on in believing a lie about themselves, about God, and about what will make them happy. - finish reading at Love, Truth, and Happiness

What this author says is pretty much all that I've ever wanted to say on my blog - but this guy says it more eloquently and honestly than I am capable of doing.  I highly recommend you read his blog and follow it:  It is Letters to Christopher - I really think the Holy Spirit is the author.

Thanks for reading.

Have to run  ...