Earthly arithmetic

I received a "special greeting," only to open it and find about fifty other addressees besides me. Not feeling so "special" anymore, I moved on to the next email.

My assumption, as I reflected on it later, was that love's intensity is diluted when it's stretched fifty ways. For the same reason, I would not like to be a Mormon of the old school, and competitor for my husband's affections.

But then I started thinking of people I know who have loved me well. They have generally been people who loved others well too. There was Marge, who opened her house to many a stray hippie in Hyannis. There was Lyn, who had scores of friends, but took me to Quebec the summer my husband died.

The quality of the love, and not the number of people it alights on, is the thing. I have noticed that if a person has this kind of love, she is able to hold more people in her embrace than another person who is capable of letting in only one or two. My arithmetic was too earthly.

I need to disabuse myself of this prejudice regarding God. I have been thinking He can't possibly love me well if he is so promiscuous with his affections. But that's like an ant trying to fathom the sea. "The weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25).