I questioned a lot of things at that time. Things like human nature, of how could the world allow another holocaust? The existence of a God, who could allow 800,000 people to be murdered in 100 days. I questioned religion; at least that was not new. It was a time of where I simply had become disillusioned.

I was in a country with the highest church attendance in Africa, 96 % on a Sunday and yet there was hatred, anger, bitterness and now this genocide. Once again it showed me that religion is just like shirts that people put on, it covers the outside but it does not change the heart of man. Religion to me by then had become distasteful, and this only seemed to confirm it. Many of the killers were Priests, Nuns, Pastors and church going folks.

Where was the missing link in all of this? Where was the love, the grace, the mercy, the flow of words put to loving actions? Where was the redemptive nature of the church, or religion?

(As a result of the Genocide in Rwanda there has been a backlash against the Church, no matter what the denomination, with attendance being down. Denominations such as the Seventh Day Adventists, Episcopalians, Free Methodists and the Catholic Church have apologized for the actions of their leaders and members. The government has declared Islam as a religion favorable to Rwanda since most Islamic Rwandans did not participate in the genocide.)

I looked out on the small creek running by me, gurgling sounds reaching my ears. It appeared almost angry, reflecting the country through which it ran. I heard some shouting and saw two men with a large rope that they had strung across the small river.

I was wondering what they were up to. The rope seemed to be tightly strung across the river. There seemed to be no slack in it. I was wondering what they were doing and how they got it across the river in the first place? Just then the man across the river from me shouted and dropped his end and it fell into the river, swiftly being carried downstream by the current.

A light came on inside of me. Was that not just how it was with people. Was this not a picture of love gone sour? Was this not a picture of why there was so much hatred in relationships, between people, races, tribes and countries?

Love between people was just like the rope I saw a few yards down from me. For any relationship to work it takes two people, holding their end of the rope. Holding it tightly between them and through that relational rope flows acts of kindness, words of love and life and those words translated into loving actions. It takes open communication, nurturing, giving and receiving. No one person can keep a relationship going. It takes two to hold it together and if one lets go, the currents of the river, the currents of life will send it down the creek

Many of us have tried to create or sustain a loving relationship. No country can do it, no tribe, no family, and no religious institution. We can only invite another into joining us at the table of relationship.

Religious institutions in Rwanda could talk about love, preach on it, write about it, but loving relationships can only exist between people when the other party responds to the invitation to join in and hold their end of the rope. Then the rope tightens and life can flow freely. Relationships thrive, people become alive; the tight rope is the symbol of the relational flow.

I had seen that so clearly in my own life, in my own relationships. The rope had become slack. No output or input of love, only substitutes like activities that kept one from being loving. Appearance was there, but no reality. One keeps busy by substituting religion for love, by adding toys to our lives in order to make us feel good for the moment, but there is no substitute for a love that gives from the heart, that contributes, forgives freely, shows mercy, kindness.

We can all become cynical about love since all of us have tasted the disappointments of love, thinking that love is a myth that only exists in movies, on stage, in books and songs. Even in the pop songs of today such Madonna’s current hit, "the power of goodbye," one can hear and sense that for many love is not a reality.

If one does dare to love and live today he or she is accused of not being real, or living in a world of make-believe, not seeing life as it really is. Rwanda was and is real, just like the 40 year old war in the south of Sudan, the strife in Sierra Leone, the conflict in Angola, the tribal clashed in Kenya and the guerilla warfare in the north of Uganda.

Yes, the reality of life can be and is often cruel and merciless, but there is more, there has to be more than mere existence lived out against the drab backdrop of hatred and strife. You and I choose the world that will be ours. If we choose and accept the hatred around us that is all that we have. Then the rope falls into the creek and drifts off into the distance. If however somehow we believe that all that has been written and spoken and acted out of and in love has a ring of truth in it. Then we can choose to take our part of the rope and hold on tightly inviting others to join us in this journey, this path of love.

I saw the Rwandan man holding his end of the rope as the other headed down river. What a vivid picture of a one sided relationship or a relationship without love.