Adultery(31)

The message of Love is in the way I live my life, and not in my words or my deeds.

In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells us, in three short lines, that Love is made of many elements, like light. We learn at school that if we pick up a prism and allow a ray of light to pass through, that ray will divide into seven colors, those of the rainbow.

Paul shows us the rainbow of Love just as a prism reveals to us the rainbow of light.

And what are those elements? They are virtues we hear about every day and that we can practice in every moment.

Patience: Love is patient …



Kindness:… and kind.



Generosity: Love does not envy …



Humility:… or boast; it is not arrogant …



Courtesy:… or rude.



Unselfishness: It does not insist on its own way.



Good temper: It is not irritable … or resentful.



Guilelessness: or resentful.



Sincerity: It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.



All these gifts concern us, our daily lives, and today and tomorrow, not with Eternity.

The problem is that people tend to relate these traits to the Love of God, but how does God’s Love manifest itself? Through the Love of man.

To find Peace in the heavens, we must find love on Earth. Without it, we are worthless.

I love and no one can take that away from me. I love my husband, who always supports me. I think I also love another man, whom I met in my youth. And while I was walking toward him, one lovely autumn afternoon, I dropped all my defenses and cannot rebuild them. I’m vulnerable, but I don’t regret that.

This morning, when I was drinking a cup of coffee, I looked at the gentle light outside and remembered that walk, asking myself for the last time: Am I trying to create a real problem to drive away my imaginary ones? Am I really in love or have I simply transformed all the last month’s unpleasant feelings into a fantasy?

No. God would never be so unfair as to allow me to fall in love like that if there were not some possibility for that love being requited.

But sometimes Love demands that you fight for it. And that’s just what I will do. In the pursuit of justice, I have to ward off evil without exasperation or impatience. When Marianne is long gone and he is with me, Jacob will thank me for the rest of our lives.

Or he will leave again, but I will be left with the feeling that I fought as hard as I could.

I’m a new woman. I am pursuing something that won’t come to me of its own free will. He is married and believes any false move might compromise his career.

So what do I need to concentrate on? On undoing his marriage without him realizing it.





I AM going to meet my first drug dealer!

I live in a country that has decided to happily shut itself off from the world. When you decide to visit the villages around Geneva, one thing becomes immediately clear: there is nowhere to park, unless you can use an acquaintance’s garage.

The message is: don’t come here, outsiders, because the view of the lake below, the majestic Alps on the horizon, the wildflowers in the springtime, and the golden hue of the vineyards in autumn, all are the legacy of our ancestors who lived here completely undisturbed. And we want to keep it that way, outsiders, so don’t come here. Even if you were born and raised in the next city over, we are not interested in what you have to say. If you want to park your car, look for a big city, full of spaces for just that.

We are so isolated from the world that we still believe in the threat of major nuclear war. All Swiss buildings are required to have fallout shelters. A deputy recently tried to annul this law, but Parliament stood against it: Yes, there may never be a nuclear war, but what about the threat of chemical weapons? We must protect our citizens. So the costly fallout shelters continue to be built, and are used as wine cellars and storage spaces while we wait for the Apocalypse.

There are some things, however, that despite all our efforts to remain an island of peace, we cannot keep from crossing our borders.

Drugs, for example.

National governments attempt to control the suppliers and close their eyes to the buyers. We may live in paradise, but aren’t we all stressed by traffic, responsibilities, deadlines, and boredom? Drugs stimulate productivity (cocaine) and relieve tension (hashish). So, not wanting to give a bad example to the world, we both prohibit and tolerate them at the same time.