The Eternal Remedy

With autumn’s arrival, heralding winter’s coming, we, in the northern hemisphere, enter the annual season of respiratory ailments. That olden proverb comes to mind: “Feed a cold, starve a fever”,[1] accompanied by the eternal argument whether the converse is the better remedy.

With the woeful advent of worldwide antipathy, infecting all aspects – political, racial, social – of the human enterprise of living, of believing and behaving, the adage is adaptable and applicable: Feed love, starve hate. Starve love, feed hate.

I am reminded that the Apostle Paul, following his testimony about spiritual gifts, opened his paean to love, the greatest spiritual gift, saying: “Now, I show you a more excellent way.”[2]

I pray that, following this more excellent way, we feed love.

© 2022 PRA

#loveisgreaterthanhate #letuslovenothate

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[1] Attributed to John Withals, a 16^th century English lexicographer, who wrote “fasting is a great remedy of fever.” For it was believed that partaking of nourishment warmed the body and abstaining from eating had the opposite effect.

[2] 1 Corinthians 12.31b