Perhaps it is because my start date at Yale falls on Valentine’s Day, the virtue of love has been popping up all over the place as I continue to navigate the transition between a job, boss, and team I loved at NYU Langone and the road ahead. The love I’m reflecting on is not a syrupy, artificial, self-serving distortion of the word, but rather a force that changes lives for the better, a connection that is stronger than death, and a purity of spirit at the heart of all goodness.
Choosing love as “my word” for 2022
Yesterday, we dug ourselves out of the snowbanks of Saturday’s Nor’easter and made it to church as a family. It was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to lead song as cantor since Christmas due to Omnicrom. The uplifting lyrics of the “Prayer of St. Francis” and “Joyful, Joyful” filled me with genuine happiness. I recently told a dear friend who was considering finding an outlet to sing that the joy:time ratio was extraordinarily high.
The second reading was the famous passage from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. I hadn’t heard it in a little while, yet have known it by heart since I was a child. It begins, “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous, boastful, or proud.” I’ve been thinking whether or not I’d pick “a word for the year” as we head into 2022, and have decided it will be love. (In full disclosure, my selected 2021 word was “joy” and given how that year played out, my expectations for said word are not very high!)
Love of family
Hearing these time-tested words of scripture anew, I reflected on the passage in the context of my transition. Immense gratitude for the love of my family swelled in my heart. The depth of love I’ve experienced as we’ve come together to cope with the cumulative losses of my father (who died a little less than 6 months ago) and my Godfather, Uncle Bill, (who died right before Christmas) has been a stark reminder that family should ALWAYS come first. Love that conquers death has been made real to me. As has love from those who carry on the story. This bedrock of love has anchored me even more deeply into the family in which I was raised. It’s this love that has inspired me to lead and give back to my community. My calling is to pass on this foundational love to the family I’m entrusted to lead and work to raise each day…even if it takes all that I’ve got to invest fully in that cause in the years to come.
Love of supportive colleagues and friends
In thinking about genuine love in the workplace I have found that when an environment is conducive to people rallying together for good, a foundation of trust and love can truly bring out the best in one another. On the heels of an incredible NYU Langone send-off with touching tributes from employees who vulnerably shared about the impact I have had on their careers and their lives, I wondered how I could have been so lucky to have had that opportunity to not only lead, but to love them as people. It is the people I will miss more than anything. I trust these relationships are strong enough to endure a change of job. And looking forward to a brand new start at an organization I could never have dreamed of calling my home, I am excited for the people I will meet, who I’ll be able to help, and the lessons I will learn as I continue to grow.
Love of self
Perhaps hardest of all, I am learning to be gentle with myself in not judging too harshly or criticizing too strongly what I’m capable of each day. Taking on the perspective of how I would treat my daughter or a close friend if they were confiding in me, I am learning to have empathy and some compassion toward myself. Facing the COVID-19 pandemic as a healthcare worker and working mother of two elementary school students as support systems came crashing to the ground, I was forced to confront my own humanity and limitations. Tasha Layton’s “Look what you’ve done” has become a ballad this past year, turning the inherent shame of my own brokenness into praise for God’s love and movement in my life. As I face down the cumulative grief of losing two father figures and 15 years of relationships I’ve built, I am attempting to let go and let the love that has brought me to this point carry me onward in confident hope!
“Look what you’ve done
How could you fall so far?
You should be ashamed of yourself
So I was ashamed of myselfThe lies I believed
They got some roots that run deep
I let ’em take a hold of my life
I let ’em take control of my lifeStanding in Your presence, Lord
I can feel You diggin’ all the roots up
I feel Ya healin’ all my wounds up
All I can say is, “Hallelujah”Look what You’ve done.”
-Tasha Layton
Love you!
Mary Enquist
1If I speak in the tongues a of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, b but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13: 1-13
