The other day, I was at my local Aldi store.  If you aren’t familiar with Aldi, it is a grocery store with a different business model than your run-of-the-mill American grocery store.  Typically, Aldi stores are relatively small with fewer options, lots of organic items, and cheap prices.  For all of these reasons, I like Aldi alot.

Because I do most of my grocery shopping there, I know the store pretty well.  For example, I know precisely where to go if and when I run out of Italian seasoning. I certainly, however, do not know the store as well as the Aldi employees. They are the masters of the Aldi universe. Want to know where to find fire-roasted red peppers?  The Aldi employee will know precisely where to go.  Sometimes, just for kicks, I ask the Aldi employees for the location of some obscure item just to watch them squirm for half a moment before they smile and tell me exactly where to find it.  The pride exhibited by Aldi employees in knowing their store so fully is visibly evident.

Living well often entails deeply knowing some place or some person or some animal or some activity. An Aldi employee will know their store very well, and it seems to bring them great satisfaction in sharing their knowledge.  Likewise, I know many people who choose to spend time in places that they know extremely well.  I have a friend who lives on the side of a mountain in Colorado, and she spends part of each day walking to the top of the mountain and back down again.  She has come to know that mountain so well, and she speaks in terms of having a love affair with the mountain.  I have another friend who, each spring and summer weekend of his life, spends hours paddling the same stretch of river and has an undeniable relationship with that river. I have yet another friend who loves to garden. She has that same sense of relationship with the flowers and vegetables that she tends, and she feels a deep respect and responsibility for the dirt that has been entrusted to her. I have another friend who is a scholar of the Bible.  She spends at least two hours each day reading and studying Scripture, asking for God’s guidance as she seeks God’s truth.  She has come to know, deeply know, the Bible, and it brings her a profound sense of joy.

Perhaps love may be defined as deep knowledge.  One loves another person or animal or place or activity by spending time with that person or animal or place or engaged in that activity.  While being well traveled or well read or knowing lots of people may be commendable, I think that deep knowledge happens only when extensive and attentive time is expended getting to know a place or person or animal or event.  Deep knowledge or love only happen when one is willing to sacrifice a substantial portion of one’s life to extend the relationship.

Now, knowing your local Aldi store may not be worthy of a substantial portion of your life, but there are certainly people, animals, places and activities that are. Find them and commit yourself to come to know them deeply. And by the way, as we invest our lives in deeply knowing, we may just discover that we have come also into a much deeper knowledge and love of the living God who has created all and blesses all loving relationships.

~Father Art