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The Compass and the Point Submitted by Richard Peace
(Editor's Note: The Rector once used an image of loving God and the neighbor being like a point on a compass and readily admitted that it came from one of the Church Fathers but could not recall who. Dr. Peace graciously sent along the following.)
"In one homily, Dorotheus of Gaza (6th c.) exhorts the brothers not to judge or condemn each other, but remember that love of God and of other people are so closely related that it is impossible to love God and have contempt for the sins and weaknesses of other people at the same time." Summing up, he says, "Each one according to his means should take care to be at one with everyone else, for the more one is united to his neighbor, the more he is united with God." Then he goes on to explain with a wonderful metaphor:
"Suppose we were to take a compass and insert the point and draw the outline of a circle. The center point is the same distance from any point of the circumference…Let us suppose that this circle is the world and that God is the center: the straight lines drawn from the circumference to the center are the lives of human beings…Let us assume for the sake of the analogy that to move toward God, then, human beings move from the circumference along the various radii of the circle to the center. But at the same time, the closer they are to God, the closer they become to one another, and the closer they are to one another, the closer they become to God.
The opposite is also true; as we move away from God we move away from other people, and as we move away from people, we also move away from God."
From: To Love as God Loves: Conversations with the Early Church by Roberta C. Bondi (Fortress Press)
Copyright © 2002 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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