When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded. We touch here a great spiritual mystery: To be chosen does not mean that others are rejected.
-Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

What if everyone could be picked first?
I know. I know. Our system isn’t set up for that kind of thinking.
American culture really likes zero-sum games
where, if I get more, you get less,
and if you get more, I get less,
because money and food and energy are all finite resources,
so there’s only so much to go around,
right?

This is called a “scarcity mentality,”
and it’s everywhere in our culture.
But in truth, there are many resources which aren’t finite.
If I give you trust, our shared trust increases.
If you give me courage, our shared courage increases.
If I give you creativity, our shared creativity increases.
But especially,
if you give me love, our shared love increases.

Love doesn’t play by the same rules as money and energy
and all those other finite resources.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
When given, it magnifies;
when hoarded, it shrinks.
Love defies zero sum logic,
and the love of God is the most perfect love there is.

As we light the fourth Advent candle, the candle of love,
we remember that Jesus came into this world because of God’s love,
not to condemn the world but to save the world,
not that a select few might be chosen by love,
but that the number chosen might be infinitely expanded.
All of us are first in God’s heart.
All of us are deeply, deeply loved.