Our Insatiable Need for Love

“No man (person) is an island” wrote John Donne, and we could say, no nation is an island.  We are not isolated units, persons or nations, we are all bound together in a global community.  We are so bound together that what we think, or what we fail to think, profoundly affects other people and nations. 

We know that a child who has been deprived of love, affection, and understanding suffers serious, sometimes catastrophic consequences, simply because he or she did not have anyone to care or love him in the early years.  That deprived person spends much of his or her adulthood trying to fill the gaps left in his being by that deprivation.  In conversations with those who are in prison, it is quickly noted that the root of their difficulty can normally be traced to this kind of deprivation.  Nobody cared, nobody loved, nobody understood, nobody gave them a thought, nobody encouraged, nobody gave them the “time of day”—nobody, nobody at all! 

Every human being has an insatiable need for love.  Whatever amount of love, affection, and understanding we were given in our childhood is never enough.  When we come into adulthood we all have gaps to fill because we didn’t get enough back then.  You might say, we are all deprived because of our insatiable need.

What is true for an individual is true for a nation.  What we think, or fail to think, profoundly affects our neighbors both near and far.  Like the child who is deprived, so a nation deprived of love and understanding suffers and attempts to fill the gaps.  When did you last “think” of Somalia, Iraq, or Mexico?  Cannot these deprived nations say, as the inmate often says: nobody cared, nobody loved, nobody understood, nobody gave us a thought, nobody encouraged us, nobody gave us the “time of day”—nobody, nobody at all! 

All of us have family and friends who are alive today because of the medical innovations that have come from the research and thinking of the many who are unknown to us.  That kind of thinking, that kind of caring, that kind of determination, on the part of these unknown researchers have made it possible for those whom we love to live.  I would suggest that intercessory prayer has similar consequences.  Who are the persons and what nation do you hold in your bundle of love and care today?  To be loved and to love is an insatiable human need.

Kindergarten, 1948.  Can you find me?