I learned as a boy scout building campfires not to collect green wood because wood burns best when it is dry.  

When a heart is deprived of love it reacts the same way a tree does when deprived of sunlight: it shrinks and shrivels and ultimately becomes rotten.  

Tares are brittle hearts, husks ripe for burning.

Who's Gonna Love those Tares? 

Those who love least need it the most.

Isn't the greatest adventure of our lifetimes learning to love those who are our enemies?

Can we love the wicked and rebellious, as Christ did? 

As Mormon did:

          I had led them,
          notwithstanding their wickedness
          
          I had led them
          many times to battle,

          and had loved them,
          according to the love of God
          
          which was in me,
          with all my heart;

          and my soul
          had been poured out
          
          in prayer unto my God
          all the day long for them.

(Mormon 3:12)  

Judge Not

When we withhold our love from somebody we are judging them to be unworthy of it. 

But those unworthy Tares

          have no beginning;
          they existed before,
          they shall have no end,
          they shall exist after,
          for they are gnolaum,
          or eternal.

(Abraham 3:18)

How could we possibly judge that which is endless?

I believe in the gospel of second chances.

It took a lot of falls for us to learn to walk -- imagine how many bumps and bruises we're going to get leaning to love.

          I will bring 
          the blind
          by a way
          that they knew not;

          I will lead
          them in paths
          they have not known;

          I will make darkness
          light before them
          and crooked things
          straight.

(Isaiah 42:16)

Grown Up Love

Taking lessons in love from the world is like learning to drive from a drunk.

The problem we see among the worldly is that they seek for a love separated from consequence (an impossibility), believing they can eat of the forbidden fruit and yet somehow remain in paradise (they cannot).

I guess the wicked never stopped building their tower of Babel -- they are still seeking today a heaven without God.

The apostle Paul, speaking of charity, said

          When I was a child
          I spake as a child,
          I understood as a child,
          I thought as a child:

          But when I became a man
          I put away childish things.

(1 Cor. 13:11)

Without God’s gift of charity, we will continue to love at an 8th-grade-level.  (Not my best year.)

Christ is going to teach us a better way.

Holy Love

When we love as Christ, with pure love, people notice.  That kind of love stands out like a bright neon orange vest upon which all can read: CAUTION: CHRIST AT WORK. 

          By this
          shall all men know
          that ye are my disciples

          if ye have love
          one to another.

(John 13:35)

Because God is holy, His love must be so, too. 

This holy love certainly doesn't seem to come from this world.  It must transcend culture and time; be the same in Africa or America; the same for our first primeval parents as it is for you and me.  

“Charity never faileth” because it is grounded in the unchanging character and goodness of God.

Can the same be said of our love?

The Sign of True Love 

The sign of true love is sacrifice. 
 
I knew a man with a son who had down syndrome.  In passing, he once told me that the members of his ward seemed relieved when his son turned twelve and could attend a regional mutual because he would no longer be "their problem anymore."
 
I reflected how, in cases such as disability, mental illness, and chronic conditions, we cannot simply "drop off a meal" and be done. 
 
Our love, somehow, must “endure to the end.” 
 
Sacrifice
 
I was wrong.  (Not the first or the last time, surely.) 

I said the sign of true love is sacrifice, but I meant, the sign of true love is sacrifice given freely, without complaint. 

After all, you would not like someone helping you to move heavy furniture while complaining the whole time of their "bad back."

Even Laman and Lemuel "sacrificed" in the wilderness, and in retrieving the plates, but their murmuring (and beating Nephi with sticks) really showed a lack of love.

I am shocked at how pleased I am with myself when I do some small kindness, like I should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for letting someone cut in front of me in heavy traffic without ramming into their rear bumper.

It is easy to fool ourselves into thinking we're doing "well" -- like when the smell of something foul has lingered so long we forget it stinks.

The Vision of Sir Launfaul
 
In 1848 James Russell Lowell wrote a poem called "The Vision of Sir Launfaul."
 
The poem is about a hero knight in the middle ages, Sir Launfaul, who spent his life seeking the holy grail. 
 
After years of futile searching, suffering adversity and discouragement in pursuit of the grail, the story concludes with Sir Launfaul returning home for the last time, downtrodden and despondent that he had failed in his life’s quest.
 
As he passed the gates into his city, he spotted a leper begging on the ground.
 
With compassion, the beleaguered knight dismounted and offered his last crust of bread to the leper along with a cup of water.
 
Suddenly, the leper transformed before his eyes, and there stood the Savior, who said:
​
     Lo, it is I, be not afraid!
     In many climes, without avail,
     Thou had spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
     Behold, it is here—this cup which thou
     Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;
     This crust is my body broken for thee,
     This water His blood that died on the tree;
     The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
     In whatso we share with another's need,
     Not that which we give, but what we share,
     For the gift without the giver is bare;
     Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three,
     Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.

Mother Teresa was asked why she dedicated her life to caring for orphans in Calcutta.  She answered, "Each one of them is Jesus in disguise."

The spirit of sacrifice is that spirit in which Jesus saw something in all of us He deemed worth dying for.

​And it takes an act of congress to get me to do the dishes?

When I was a young boy in primary attending church in Placerville, California, I memorized the Articles of Faith. 

I wish we had the Articles of Love. ​

If the first Article of Faith is to believe in God, then the first Article of Love is to become like Him.

After all, the gospel of Jesus Christ is framed by a simple truth: “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  So . . . what are we?

The command to love others ("a new commandment I give unto you") gets interesting when the Savior said we are to love one another "as I have loved you" (John 13:34).  What kind of love is that?

My First Crush

Probably not the kind of love I felt for my first crush in the first grade.  There was a girl in my class at Latrobe Elementary named Elizabeth.  I liked her. 

My aunt sold Avon and I spent my entire life savings, $10.00 whole dollars, to buy a jar of perfume.  

I arrived at school before class started and left the perfume on Elizabeth's desk with a note saying, "Love, Timothy."  Yeah, I was never a smooth Romeo.

When she showed up and discovered her (unwanted) gift from a (not so secret) admirer, she chased me around the playground angrily.  She was fast, but I was faster. 

I don't think she ever spoke to me again.

Pure Love  

So what kind of love is Christ talking about?  What does it mean to love purely?  What is this "perfect love" (1 John 4:18)? 

          The Lord God
          hath given a commandment
          that all men
          should have charity,
          which charity is love. 

          And except
          they should have charity
          they were nothing.

(2 Ne. 26:30)

Seems like this commandment is pretty important.