"Love isn't something you want to DO with someone."
"I'm not at all sure I know what love is," I said meaning it.
"I think love is when you know that a part of you IS the person you love, and a part of him or her is inside of YOU. You can't use or manipulate or deceive someone you truly love, because you'd be using or manipulating or lying to yourself. Does that make sense?"
God hears only the beating of human hearts and what rests within them. It is the compassion that comes out of the experience of oneness and holds the world in infinitely tender love that speaks efficaciously to Divine Creation Love and alters the course of history. It is not some beautiful thought or insightful idea, but being with the groanings of the earth and all its peoples that makes our prayer. It is only our living out of the Center of unity and oneness that make a difference in the redeeming of the earth.
May the love you are shine brightly;
May love bless you and all you meet!
The entire universe, the cosmos, manifests the mystery of the fiery, ever-living Light of Love that shines forth in and through matter, in and through human beings in their specific historical setting. God, as the mystery of Love, is like the horizon that surrounds the human spirit, wooing it into creative tension between body and soul, mind and emotion, individual and community, heaven and earth. Willingness to live in the tension of these poles is the womb that nourishes and protects those discerning actions that will mirror the fiery, life-giving love that is God.
Prayer is opening into Love; into that radiant and centerless Love surpassing our understanding and enfolding all of life.
To really love is a great discipline, because we must love stably and consistently and regardless of whether or not our love is returned. In other words, we love despite our likes and dislikes, despite our selves or egos. We simply ALLOW love to be a transformative force in our lives. ALLOWING is the key. And this is not a passive but an active discipline... Genuine love asks for nothing in return, through it always works toward duplicating itself in others. Thus, the greatest reward for one who practices the discipline of love is that another being has been illumined by that love and is now carrying that gift to others.
Whenever our heart opens to another person, we experience a moment of unconditional love. People commonly imagine that unconditional love is a high or distant ideal, one that is difficult, if not impossible, to realize. Yet though it may be hard to put into everyday practice, its nature is quite simple and ordinary: opening and responding to another person's being without reservation.
Love is not a doctrine. Peace is not an international agreement. Love and peace are beings who live as possibilities in us.
We live in a wounded and wounding culture. But each of our hearts, though torn, is greater than its chambers. The roots of love and reverence are deep within Creation which gives us the capacities to change human consciousness, hear the heart, and deepen the soul.
Lovers always have the sense of something given. They cannot find in themselves an adequate explanation for all that they feel and understand. In the intimate giving and receiving of their love, they not only reveal and discover their own truest selves, but come face to face with the mystery of God. The very acceptance and enjoyment of the gift they have received brings them into the presence of the Giver.