The paradox is that looking for love is not the way to find it. Abundant love will find us when we make the decision to attentively and unconditionally give it to all the people God has invited to share our life. Our primary purpose is to know and give love.
In God’s Care
Much more can and will be said about love and loving, but for now I want to conclude this present series with something fairly simple – yet very powerful – to me.
To me, love is an unconditional acceptance, and sometimes even an enjoyment of others enabled by my conscious contact with my God. It is limited by the severity of my “humanitis”, but restorable by reestablishing and improving my conscious contact with my God, with my self, and with others.
So we decide that we “want” to love. And we are realizing our powerlessness over loving – that our relationships have become “unmanageable” –frequently or periodically uncomfortable. We experience consciously our own weaknesses so we can consciously experience our God’s empowering Presence to love. And now we are ready to surrender our wills and our lives over to care of our God’s love by loving others. What do we do?
For twenty-five years I have journalled – very nearly every day. My journaling began in a very troubled time of my life, with an assignment by a minister counselor to write a letter to God. After we had read and discussed it, he said, “Now I want you to write a letter from God to you.”
I was amazed at the assignment – and even more with the experience. I had never listened to my God in that way before. And from that time to now, I have written – journalled – to my God – my feelings, and my thoughts, and my reactions and my questions, and then I have taken a few deep breaths – listened with my heart – and began to write what I heard Them "say". It has been very powerful in my life.
One word that I have heard thousands of times over those years from my God was “Listen!” Our relationship – my conscious contact with Them – has been built on attentive listening as an “act of faith”. Listening – not really to just words or thoughts – but to Their loving caring Presence – Their still small voice in the middle of massive avalanches and sunamis of emotion and human consciousness. I have learned from Their listening to me how to listen to Them, to my self, and how to listen to others. And I have been loved, nurtured, supported, and cared for by my God. They have taught me, I believe,
the highest expressions of unconditional and conscious love – intimate Presence – that I am currently capable of.
Much more can and will be said about love and loving, but for now I want to conclude this present series with something fairly simple – yet very powerful – to me.
To me, love is an unconditional acceptance, and sometimes even an enjoyment of others enabled by my conscious contact with my God. It is limited by the severity of my “humanitis”, but restorable by reestablishing and improving my conscious contact with my God, with my self, and with others.
So we decide that we “want” to love. And we are realizing our powerlessness over loving – that our relationships have become “unmanageable” –frequently or periodically uncomfortable. We experience consciously our own weaknesses so we can consciously experience our God’s empowering Presence to love. And now we are ready to surrender our wills and our lives over to care of our God’s love by loving others. What do we do?
For twenty-five years I have journalled – very nearly every day. My journaling began in a very troubled time of my life, with an assignment by a minister counselor to write a letter to God. After we had read and discussed it, he said, “Now I want you to write a letter from God to you.”
I was amazed at the assignment – and even more with the experience. I had never listened to my God in that way before. And from that time to now, I have written – journalled – to my God – my feelings, and my thoughts, and my reactions and my questions, and then I have taken a few deep breaths – listened with my heart – and began to write what I heard Them "say". It has been very powerful in my life.
One word that I have heard thousands of times over those years from my God was “Listen!” Our relationship – my conscious contact with Them – has been built on attentive listening as an “act of faith”. Listening – not really to just words or thoughts – but to Their loving caring Presence – Their still small voice in the middle of massive avalanches and sunamis of emotion and human consciousness. I have learned from Their listening to me how to listen to Them, to my self, and how to listen to others. And I have been loved, nurtured, supported, and cared for by my God. They have taught me, I believe,
the highest expressions of unconditional and conscious love – intimate Presence – that I am currently capable of.
As I was sitting in my spiritual group this morning, I was listening to Them, and They reminded me of four types of love-listening that I have given and been given:
1. Simple physical presence and visual attention.
2. Mental presence or listening to and hearing the others thoughts.
3. Emotional presence or empathically listening to others feelings through the medium of my own feelings.
4. Spiritual presence or listening to others from a place of conscious intimate connection with our God, with ourselves, and with other human beings.
When others are listening to me, I experience an heightened level of my God’s loving Presence – and theirs. When I am listening to others, I experience the same, and also an intuitive use of silence, words, and nonverbal gestures to communicate our presence.
Maybe along with any Valentines, cards, flowers, etc… maybe we can add the loving gift of an attentive ear, and a listening heart – not just on this particular day – but everyday – and with – nearly -- every person in our lives.
“Sincerely touching the soul of someone else can tap the well of happiness within each of us.”
Each Day a New Beginning
The first duty of love is to listen.
The first duty of love is to listen.
Paul Tillich
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