Dearest Ommie,

Thanks for your intelligent question. It gives me a chance to explain what I do mean when I say, “When everything fails, love.”

In our day to day struggle with life, we encounter difficulties, trials, failures. In our journey towards our goal, there are moments when we feel everything seems against us. These are moments that come to almost all well-meaning persons’ life. The temptations when these times come would be to despair or to attack or blame others who may be are contributory to your experience of failure. We tend to be unloving. We tend to withdraw from others. We become cynical, chary or suspicious. Sometimes, we become indifferent or apathetic. In a word, we can no longer love the person next to us.

When this moment comes to us, the best way to get out of this situation is to love! To love means to get out of ourselves, reach out to other persons. Become interested in their affairs. Do something for them. When you feel down, make others up so that when that person is up, she will pull you up.

So, when everything fails, love. Do not stop in failure. Start all over again. And when you start rightly by loving, you’ll never fail because you become a loving person. There is no greater success than becoming a child of God, for God is Love.