Friday, December 9, 2022
This week in my church, and likely in many of yours, we celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The Gospel reading, recounted the story of the visit to the Virgin Mary, by the Angel, Gabriel, who announced to her that she would conceive and bear a child who would be the son of God. It is not necessary for you to believe that this happened. It is enough for you to imagine that it did. For the point of all of this is not a religious thing. It is moreover about that which drives human beings to undertake the extraordinary.
Think for a moment about what was required in this case, or for any human being, or group of them, to agree to undertake the monumental. Certainly it takes faith. Trust matters as well. But to accomplish the truly extraordinary, as in this example from 2,000 years ago – requires love.
And that’s the point for the week.
The greatest level of commerce that can exist among human beings is love. It’s not trust. Nor is it faith. While these things matter a great deal and are always a part of winning teams, accomplishing anything of extraordinary value requires a depth of feeling that can only be described one way – as love. It is love that enables the accomplishment of the seemingly impossible.
Love is not strong like.
Love is exactly what it says. It is the point at which one places the needs, interests, wants, security, comfort and feelings of others
ahead of their own. When the people in an organization truly love one another, they look out for one another, they protect one another, and keep each other safe. With love, there is no wasted effort or emotion because every single person in the place wants and works for the same exact things – because they understand that when those goals are achieved, the lives of everyone in the organization improve. No one engages in self-centered behavior; no one pulls the rope the wrong way or doesn’t pull it at all, because these are not acts of love.
When every person in an organization truly loves every other person in that organization, there is almost nothing that organization cannot achieve. That’s because there is almost nothing each person in that organization would not do for every other person in the place.
Doubt it? Find anyone who’s ever achieved the extraordinary, defied the odds, or performed what was once thought impossible. Look more deeply at what made it happen, kept it together, or held it aloft. I’ll bet you it feels more than a little bit like love.
That’s because nothing meaningful in the history of mankind was ever accomplished without love.
What we do here won’t be the first.
So love the one you’re looking at.
And win.
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