Algebra, Life, And Love
By Joe Mazzella
When I was a boy I was great at math. I learned to add and subtract playing cards around the kitchen table with my family. In grade school I went over the multiplication tables again and again until I had them memorized. Then when I got to high school i had to take algebra. Suddenly, the numbers were letters, there were equations, and everything was so abstract I couldn’t make sense of it. Learning it felt like banging my head against the wall. I felt like I would never understand it, never use it, and never need it in my life.
That last part was proven false, though, several years later. I was working at a minimum wage job, struggling to support my young family. One day I found myself with just 10 dollars in my wallet until the next payday. The gas tank on my old clunker car was empty too, so I pulled up to a convenience store and put 5 dollars worth of gas in the tank. As I was waiting in line to pay, I saw the woman in front of me frantically searching through her purse to find enough cash to pay for 2 gallons of milk. For a second selfishness held back my heart, but then I walked forward and put down my last 5 dollars to help her get the milk for her children. As I left the store I felt strange. My wallet was empty but my heart felt full. I was flat broke but still felt like the richest man in the world. It didn’t make sense to me mathematically. But then I remembered that Algebra didn’t either. Maybe I didn’t have to understand it. Maybe I just had to enjoy it.
Life and Love are a lot like Algebra. They can be a mystery that we never fully understand. The truth is the more Love we give, the more Love we have. The more we share it, the more it grows inside of us. The more we help others, the more we help ourselves. Love is endless because God is endless. Life is eternal because God is eternal. It is impossible to understand, yet it makes perfect sense. Embrace the mystery then. And enjoy all the riches of Love.
