Category: Love

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Watchword for 2018

So You know how I feel about New Year’s Eve, how I feel about rites of passage in general. I like them. I like assessing and planning. I like looking back, looking around, and looking forward. I like keywords and watchwords. God, do You have a word for our planet? For our country?

Love One Another. Everything falls apart without that.

Love is the oil that lubricates every relationship, that soothes every wound, that softens every scar. Love’s oil gives light, gives heat, gives fragrance, and transforms ordinary days into oases of great beauty and joy. It’s the one song the stars dance to, and the waves on the shore. You can never have too much love or give too much love. Love has the power to transform any situation, bring calm out of chaos, and give sight to the blind, especially those who are blind to others. Love is always in season, always in style, never grows old.

You say you want to change the world? Love one another. Begin and end with Love. End your year, start your year. Let love undergird every decision. Do all from love, with love, by love. It’s another way of saying, do all connected to Me. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it is connected to the Vine, neither can you, unless you are connected to Me.

You want fruit? You want impact? You want influence? You want a better world? Choose Me. Choose Love.

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At Table

Lord, it is Christmas Eve morning. I and the rest of the western world are about ready to go into overdrive, all in the name of celebrating Your birth. Supposedly. You had such humble beginnings; all this must make You sad, right?

Revelry and festivity aren’t the issues. My first earthly miracle was to transform water into wine, good wine, the best vintage wine, at a wedding feast, remember? My feasting and association with those of lesser social and spiritual status deeply offended the Pharisees, remember? Don’t be a Pharisee in your thinking. Don’t honor asceticism for its own sake. What did I preach against and warn against most during My time on earth? Greed. Selfishness. Prejudice. Pride.

What did I applaud? Sharing with others, especially those less fortunate. Forgiving others, especially those that seemed to deserve it the least. Welcoming others, especially those rejected by the prideful and arrogant. Loving others, especially those outside your own circles of interest.

Of all the laws in place at the time, which did I say were most important? The Love Laws. Love God, Love Neighbor, and yes, Love Yourself. But notice the order. To love someone means to consider that person’s needs, wants, likes, and dislikes; to pay attention to what that person says and does; to spend time with that person. Love God First isn’t a command born out of Divine ego, as we have talked about before. I ask humanity to Love God first, because each of you was made for Love. Each of you was made for a relationship that is pure and empowering, that is free and fulfilling, in every way. That Love relationship is found first in Me, in connecting with Me. I ask you to Love Others second, because the natural outcome of loving is giving and sharing, and you need tangible, physical, human ways to do that. Once you are ignited by Love, by My Love, then that Love needs outlets for expression beyond the times of prayerful conversation we have. You hear Me, but in your heart and mind. You see My Loving Hand at work in your world and in your circumstances, but you cannot yet see Me face to face. You touch My world but your hands have not embraced Me yet. So you need outlets and expressions for this new capacity you have for Love, and that is where your families, your friends, your neighbors, and yes, the whole world of strangers, comes in. This is the arena of loving others.

I ask you to Love Yourself alongside Loving Neighbor, Loving Others. Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. I make those two equal. Ah, you never thought of that! You tend to rank them 1, 2, 3. No, it is really, A, and B/B. God, and Neighbor/Self. I phrased this way because so many reverse the order, putting themselves first, a select group of others second, and Me last — if at all. But cutting yourself off from Love’s source soon dries up the well. Soon you have no love to give and share. The result of that is not only a selfish life, but a bitter, withered, shriveled life, a life in which people also neglect themselves, neglect their health, their body, their emotional life, and their spirit.

So by all means feast! Be festive! Be merry! If you do your feasting and revelry in My Name, in My Spirit, and AS IF I were present (which of course I Am), you will never make a wrong choice, say the wrong thing, or have regrets on the day after the holiday.  Just set a place for Me at your Table, not just tonight, not just tomorrow, but every day of your life.

 

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Calling on Angels

NOTE: This particular entry dates back to December 2015. I felt led to post it tonight upon hearing of a domestic shooting in another state. After the word “bombing” in my original opening sentence, I added the words “shooting” and “attack,” after praying about altering the original entry. I offer it tonight as my prayer and intention for peace.

Oh, God, another bombing (shooting/attack). Please, please, please, please, please. Please.

Don’t worry and call it prayer. Don’t fear and call it wisdom. Don’t hate and call it justice.

Take a deep breath, and pray for My will, which is Peace, to be done.

Take another deep breath, and pray for My Kingdom, which is Love, to come.

Take yet one more deep breath, and pray for My Angels, who are heralds of Hope, to be once again seen, once again heard, once again felt, and once again followed.

Ssshhhh. You can cry; I Am crying too. What? You think I don’t weep with those who weep? I don’t ask you to do anything I Myself Am not already doing. Yes, I will wipe away all tears—but not today. Not as long as there is still grief and sorrow in your world. But bring those tears to Me. Don’t let what you see and hear make you bitter. This is hard work, to remain connected to Me as the Source of Love and Goodness when voices all around you begin to shout louder and louder in rage and revenge. That is what leads to war, you know—those voices. So cry if you must, but cry for peace.

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The Color Of Love

Lord, my painter friend says, convince me, the viewer, that this is a boat. Or a bird. Whatever. It is the essence. So what is the essence of my life with You? Now, this is. This deliberate time. Lord, living as if You were literally present to all my senses. That’s what I’m doing. I’m living—trying to, anyway, as if You were right at my elbow. “Pleasing God” doesn’t even come close. You are not my boss; You’re so much more. You’re my love. It’s like, in these moments, I am Your love, too. These are all imperfect, incomplete analogies, and sometimes I feel self-centered, that You take this interest in me (why me?). But I know, first, it’s true, and more, that You, being God, have this mysterious capacity to be like this, intimately involved at the same time with all of us, the whole planet of us, maybe the whole universe of creations.

So that insight, that understanding, changes everything for me, and on a daily basis. Every day I wake up and I am so glad I am married to Pete. I am so glad for the fur-babies in my life. And I am so glad that I know I am Yours. I found a piece of blue seaglass! It’s butterfly blue. What is this blue a symbol of? I think, “nothing but blue skies…”

 Isn’t that kind of like me, and isn’t that kind of like PollyAnna?

I need some PollyAnnas. I have a world filled with Doom-N-Gloomers. Some are driving that train and some are on board believing there’s no other ride. If you can believe this, I Am PollyAnna Myself. I need some Believers. I need some Dreamers. I need some Co-creators. That is where you and others like you come in. I need some Weavers of Magic. I need some Painters of Possibility. I need some Happily-Ever-After Storytellers. Won’t you join with me in My work of making New?

Everything old is new again—that’s My work.

Think of your breath like blue mist. Think of every out-breath as calming, soothing, healing, as Peace. Blue is the color of Peace, My Peace. Breath in Yellow, the energizing sun of Yes, of Joy, and breath out the gentle calm soothing breeze yes of Peace. Yellow and Blue make green, the green growth of beauty. You associate red with love in your culture because you’ve emphasized sacrifice. Green is a love-color too, which emphasizes growth. Love Grows. Love Expands. Love makes room, always, for one more at the Table. Evergreen is a symbol of My Love, Love in every season.

 

 

 

 

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I Do

Here I am, Lord; it is I, Lord. Over and over, the same questions, the same questions…

You don’t expect Pete to ask you to marry him every day or every few days. You settled that with one yes and your later I do. You do expect to hear and say, I love you. Don’t confuse the two in your relationship with Me. Settle in your heart the promises I have made you—to bless you, to prosper your business, to give your body health and strength, to bless you and Pete, to bring you encounters in the wild, to open doors to share about Me and about your life in Me with a greater audience. All of that is like the “I do.”

I want you to think again of seven, of seven days, of seven years, as Sabbath and Jubilee years. These are years that celebrate such overwhelming abundance, you actually reap, eat and enjoy the fruit of past labors and coast on the breeze of My favor. Let Me lavish you, that is what Sabbath means. You think it means a fast—it means a feast. The ultimate Sabbath will be the Feast of the Bridegroom and oh! What rejoicing and revelry then! I want you to shed once and for all time your poverty model. I want you to go forth, rejoicing. You need to let your heart love what it loves.

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Sow seeds of Love

I keep thinking about that story, where a monk goes to his superior and says, I do my little alms and make my little prayers, and what more can I do, and the superior answers, why not pray to be turned into flame? That story has always gotten to me and I’m not sure why. What does that even mean? I think the story isn’t about martyrdom, it is more about zeal, about being all-in. So what does that mean, in 2017, here, now? Why does the story affect me at all?

Because you always think you are not doing enough. You always fear you are falling short of some impossibly high standard I have set for you.

Well, yeah—perfection. Be ye perfect, right? Straight A life, right?

This is the common interpretation, God as School-master, ready to grade performance and knowledge, every day an exam, every hour a pop-quiz. No wonder you, so many humans, are so stressed. A better understanding of perfect would be complete or whole. Scripture also says, perfect love casts out fear. Imagine a container, full to the brim with water, full even to the point of overflowing. There is no room for anything else in that container. A life lived in perfect love, a soul made perfect in love, would have no space for fear or any of fear’s outworkings, like greed (which is fear of lack) or jealousy (which is fear over position or opportunity) or hatred (which is fear of being less-than, of being ignored, of being taken for granted). Take away fear, all fear, and replace that with love, genuine love, and look what happens to your day and in your life. You treat others well and you treat yourself well. Your gifts and talents are fully developed and used to bless others, blessing yourself in the process. You have no lack. And if everyone around you is living from the same mindset, no one else has any lack either. Perfect love is the answer to every one of earth’s ills.

But, Lord, we don’t love like that. And some live the opposite—they are so full of fear they have little or no room for love at all!

It is tempting to look around and try to grade others. That is why I said, “don’t judge.” Be concerned with your own vessel, with your own heart, your own life. Fill yourself up with My Love.

How do I do that with folks whose values are so different than mine? How do I love those who do terrible things, who show no love at all?

(Gently) Little One, they need love most of all. The only way you can show love to such as these is to pray to see with My eyes, with My heart. Pray for a crack in the dark to let the light in. Pray for the tiniest crack in their bedrock of fear to let the water of Love seep in. Pray for Love to increase. Pray for seeds of Love to flourish and grow in the unlikeliest of places, in the most arid and polluted of circumstances.

The Sower sowed seed everywhere, in all kinds of soil, remember? Do you think the Sower was stupid? Or wasteful? No, the Sower is a parable of Hope! You be the good soil that brings forth a multiplication of seeds—and then dare to be a sower who scatters seeds of love everywhere, trusting that some will sprout, some will grow, and will transform the desert into a garden. That is the promise, about rivers in the desert and dry places holding a well. You grow in Love, and sow in Hope, and know, no seed of Love sown is ever truly wasted.

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More on Faith and Love

The vet came, and we are going to have to put Mikey down, soon. I am thinking maybe even today. It’s wild, I journal yesterday about him, and now, this. I might’ve said, I don’t have the faith to see him healed but now, after what You said yesterday, that is not it. Is it?

Love would let him go. Sometimes Love holds on and sometimes Love lets go. True Love is discerning–it knows its time. It knows its purpose in each situation, each decision. When Love knows it is not yet time to let go, then Love energizes faith; the knowing what is best, what is most loving, gives the power for healing to happen. True Faith is believing in the reality and power of Love, in what Love can do in the world, whether it be in a sick body or a broken heart or a devastated community. And since I Am Love, Faith at its deepest and purest has eyes to see Me in every situation, to see My Hand in everything–not as Cause, necessarily. Sometimes as Cure.

If you can learn to live from Love, let Love be the foundation for everything you do and think and say, you will have the kind of faith that can move mountains–if moving a mountain is truly what Love needs to happen! You can also have the kind of faith that moves you–that inspires you to take action, all based in Love. So you see, letting Mikey go is an act of Love, and therefore, also an act of faith, an assurance you are doing the best thing.

But it still hurts.

(Gently) Yes, little one, I know. I better than anyone know the hurt Love experiences in the world. This is little comfort to you now, but the world I envisioned, the world I first created, the world where Mikey is now, has no hurt, no time, no limit, no end. It is only and always Love. Mikey has simply returned to that which he was created to inhabit all along. He is the one who is Home; you are the one still absent. Remember how I said yesterday, Faith connects others to Me through your Love?

Yes. What did You mean, exactly?

If you can believe, you will experience the connection to everyone you have ever loved, who has passed from sight, but is with Me, alive, in joy. There is no separation within Myself. You really do inhabit parallel universes–that is one way of phrasing it. The more you can open yourself up to eternity, the more of eternity you will experience in your earthly life. You have had moments of this, dreams of this, flashes of this. These were not anomalies. In a real sense, any sense of separation you experience–from Me, from those you love–is the anomaly. Love Is. Mikey is now held in purest Love. Allow your heart to rest in this knowing, if only for brief minutes at a time, and that knowing will comfort you beyond your mind’s understanding. And you will experience what you call “faith”–walking the bridge that connects you to Me, and to others. You pictured a tightrope, high, scary, windy. See how solid it really is? See how beautiful the country? You have glimpses and then the vision fades. Be not discouraged. Just feel the Love.

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Love and Faith

I rescued a locust yesterday, on its back on the deck and I thought it was dead. But I picked it up and it gripped my finger…I put it on a branch and all of a sudden, a whir of wings and gone! Yay! That was joy. I was thinking ahead as I was writing this, thinking, what happened? And quick the answer: Love happened. Aha. Yes. So, it’s Love, then, that heals? Not faith?

Love is the engine. Faith is the caboose. Faith seems to fail when it tries to drive without Love. Love energizes Faith. Think of it like this–

Lord, I can’t think. Mikey is crying, and I just had him out.

Listen and look with Love. What does he need?

I think he needs my attention. And breakfast.

So, faith without love would say to ignore him and keep bending over the page, waiting for some mystical revelation. What does love say?

Love says, stroke his ears and get up and feed him, which is what I am going to do…Ok, I’m back.

And what happened?

Well, he’s eating. He’s content.

And here you are, with Me, quiet again. Love undergirds your entire life, when you are living fully connected to Me. While Quiet helps you focus, you were not disconnected when you made the choice to pause and tend to his needs. Look how many examples there are of Jesus leaving His quiet time and place to serve the needs of the crowd. You need both. You need time devoted here, yes. But you can’t LIVE here, on the page. This time is meant to empower you for the rest of your day, where you live in community with others. This time is meant to fill you so your love can overflow. That’s what I mean by faith is the caboose. Faith is Love’s bridge in the world. Faith connects others to Me through your Love.

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Connection

Lord, what would You say? Come to the silence, quiet my chatter, that is what these morning pages are supposed to help me do. Inner knowing to me means hearing from You. It means receiving when I don’t know.

You don’t follow Me by rote—You follow Me instead by “wrote”—by My word made real to you, spoken to you. I have never spoken fear to you. So don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of displeasing Me. You want, you seek, to make something tangible, something to help communicate and reinforce My presence with you, and with others with you, to help spark their faith in My goodness and My power to heal and restore—and My willingness to do so. The ingredients you are choosing connect you to the idea (and ideal) of connectedness to all living beings, and to living in peace.

You are making a new oil—an Oil of Peace. Your life of connection is peace, is a life of peace. Love is the bond of peace for you—and for Me. Under your Tree of Life are all the four-footeds, and the wingeds rest in that Tree’s branches, all at Peace. Eve’s Eden indeed.

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Choosing Love Over Violence

I am sitting outside, in the swing, wanting the feel and sounds of the outdoors. We now have a new “the worst mass shooting” in our national history. Here is what I know: it’s not You. It’s no part You. I don’t know how to pray, what to say to make sense out of madness.

Imagine a father with a family feud–that is easy for you to imagine; you live there. And you see how it affects him, day to day. You see how his heart aches and how he tries to just go on despite it, throwing himself into his work, having given up on trying to broker any peace. The difference is, I can’t–won’t–ever give up. So as long as there is one war, one fight, one enemy, I, God, carry within Myself both unutterable grief and boundless joy and hope–joy over, as your Bible puts it–“one sinner who repents”–which really means, one person coming home to his or her best self, one person laying down hate and choosing to love, or at least, to learn to love. This is the duality people sometimes sense within Me, and try to explain through words like Light and Dark or Yin and Yang. The unity in the duality is Love. Because I Am Love, I hold both grief and joy at the same time, and because I Am Love, I Am always ready to show mercy.

Lord, it feels hopeless. Like “they” are never going to agree. It is such a beautiful day, here. And such a horrible, terrible day, there.

I have promised never to destroy your world. That doesn’t mean humanity won’t. You have to decide what side you are on–the side of mercy and hope and love and peace, or the side of vengeance and hatred and fear and violence.

Lord, You know my choice is for love and peace.

Is it? Where are you focused right now?

So how can I make a difference, make a stand?

By looking for concrete ways to show My Love, to speak My Love, to every hurting and searching heart you encounter. By affirming all you know about My Father-God heart. By calling people everywhere to lay down the weapons in their minds, the judgment, the retaliation, the name-calling, the bigotry, the envy, the violence in their thoughts and words. Every violent act begins with violent thoughts and words. Change the conversation. Change the vocabulary. Start in your own mind, your own thought, and spread the ripples outward from there. Sound the trumpet-call to Love.