spring

Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and respect for strength, in search of my mother's garden, I found my own.

Beauty transforms the beholder.

For a few minutes we sat there petting the kittens, saying nothing. But every so often I glanced at Demetrios. His big, thick, wrinkled hands cradled the animal lovingly as he stroked its fur in repetitive waves from the neck on down. Then he looked up and sighed.

"Touch everything this way."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Try to love everything. Everything wants love, just like these ghatakia (kittens). Let your love flow--let it be constant, like the seasons. . . . We are called to love people, birds, beasts, trees, seas, stars . . . all the universe wants to be cherished!"

Be a sweet melody in the great orchestration,
instead of a discordant note.
The medicine this sick world needs is love.
Hatred must be replaced by love,
and fear by faith that love will prevail.

I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other.

An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by its own fullness, not by its reception.

I was recently rereading the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and I understood once again that the whole movement was based on love--love that doesn't exclude anybody. . . when you take that view and you begin to live by it, something begins to shift very dramatically and you begin to see things in a different way. You begin to have the clarity to see injustice happening, but you can also see that injustice, by its very definition, is harming everybody involved. It's harming the people who are being oppressed or abused, and it's harming those who are oppressing and abusing.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Loving Lord God,
help me to be aware of your loving presence
regardless of where I am
or what I am doing.
Lead me into the center of your heart of love,
The Holy of Holies
where peace and joy abide.
Let me live in your presence always.

Love is the Conductor of our lives
be like members of a fine orchestra
with all eyes seeing as One.
Keep your inner eye single, focused
only on Love; thus
will the Great Conductor inspire
and guide the music
of your life.