Dear Editor,

Love is unselfish. First Corinthians 12:4-8. Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude; it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.The word ‘Love’ is, I believe, the greatest of all words in the English Language. Great writers, poets, singers, film makers and philosophers base their philosophies around this simple and precious word: ‘love’.

When this fascinating word is traced to its root from the Greek concept, it gives us the true meaning of the word ‘love’ from four Greek words: Eros, Philia, Storge and Agape. Eros has to do with sexual love between a man and woman; Philia means close friendship or brotherly love in Greek; Storge is family love, the bond among mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers; but the greatest love is what most experts called the ‘Agape love’, or the God kind of love.

Selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love of all human beings is the God kind of love Jesus spoke about in St John’s Gospel Chapter 15 verse 12, which reads as follows: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you”.

This is the type of love Gandhi, Mandela and King demonstrated to their enemies in the world. Gandhi wrote: “An eye for an eye gives the world a blind eye”. If we can follow this profound philosophy of love, we can live in a better world; one that is devoid of hate, greed and malice.

What we need in Guyana is the God kind of love in our hearts. It can keep the prison doors closed and give us lasting peace, even in our Parliament and in our homes.

The ultimate source of all encouragement is the fact that “God is love, and He loves us and has a perfect plan for us”. We live in a world that is full of hatred, greed and selfishness. We search for love in the person we love, but discover sooner or later that we still long for a deeper and inner love that only God can give to us. We search for love and joy in money, sexual pleasure, drugs, rum and false friends; but we sooner or later discover it’s all a mortal form of illusion. We even try psychology and all types of psychiatric treatment, but find they are useless, good only for a mental breakdown.

We search for love in fulfilling our academic dreams by hard studies, and discover that our education has created for us more envy, strife and hatred from our evil-minded contemporaries. We earn money, have the most beautiful husbands and wives, and soon discover our wives and husbands are unfaithful to us, and they have become our mortal enemies when our beauty, fame, popularity and money have come to an end.

Then we suffer in fear, rejection, and humiliation; and even end up committing suicide or mental suicide, until we die slowly. Our perpetual search for love in this material world — like Alexander the Great — can never be found in material things, which will fade away like our dreams in the pristine beauty of the serene night.

If anyone was going to find purpose in “life under the sun”, it would have been the illustrious King Solomon, wisest and richest of all kings. He had all the wealth, power, sex, wisdom and achievements he could possibly pursue; and he went after them with relentless passion. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines, yet, with all his worldly possessions, he found life meaningless, and wrote the following in Ecclesiastes Chapter 1, King James Version (KJV)

1: The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
3: What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
4: One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.
5: The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
6: The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
7: All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

Though King Solomon possessed a great abundance of wealth, wisdom, knowledge and divine power to rule over his people, he referred to his possessions as ‘vanity’, meaning useless in Hebrew; the state or quality of being valueless, futile, or unreal — something that is worthless or useless.

He penned great spiritual wisdom from the book of Ecclesiastes; he wrote it as a Preacher and a Poet who realized that all his material possession will fade away but his soul shall never die, and he longed for a place with his Creator when he is gone from this world.

Just like Jesus said: “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36. Man’s soul, according to the Greek in the Bible, has to do with his mind, will and emotions; so Jesus is telling us here not to lose our minds and hearts by gaining in this life material things that will take the place of God.

The great Apostle Paul admonishes us when he wrote: “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”(I Timothy 6:10)

What words come to mind when you think of this phrase: The love of money is the root of all evil? Greed? Corruption? Vanity? What about when I simply say the word “money”? Nothing is wrong in having wealth and money; what is definitely wrong is when we make our money our God.

True love and peace are found only in God. The Bible indicates that love is from God. In fact, the Bible says, “God is love.” Love is one of the primary characteristics of God. Likewise, God has endowed us with the capacity for love, since we are created in His image. This capacity for love is one of the ways in which we are “created in the image of God.”

The love of God in our hearts will give us the ability to love our wives, husbands, children and the human race. No amount of wealth can replace the love of God. What we need in Guyana is God’s love; it is the cure for all our social
problems.

Yours faithfully,
REVEREND GIDEON CECIL