Greetings from the heart, dear Friends of Silence! In contemplating the nature of love, we find it hard to pin down to any one definition. Love is all-encompassing, ever flowing. Love knows no walls, it permeates everything and is visible in everything to those with eyes to see. The nature of God is love, and the nature of all God's creation is love. Our own deepest nature is of that same divine love. It is our task to find that love in ourselves, be open to it, remain in constant contact with it, and allow it to guide and direct our lives. In the silence, it is possible to rest there for a time and then to return to our busy lives with greater awareness of and ability to bring love to all our actions and interactions. May it be so!
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.
Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.
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.
In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.
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.
There is love like a small lamp, which goes out when the oil is consumed; or like a stream which dries up when it doesn't rain. But there is a love like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth; it keeps flowing forever, and is inexhaustible . . .
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!"
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.
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.
As Aldous Huxley wrote: "There isn't any formula or method. You learn by loving." But sometimes, if we're lucky, we live long enough to grow into it in such a way that because of it we come to recognize the value of life. . . . We learn enough about love to allow things to slip away and ourselves to melt into the God whose love made all of it possible. . . . Sometimes we live long enough to see the face of God in another. Then, in that case, we have loved.
No separation between God and humans . . . a complete, mutual indwelling: I am in God, God is in you, you are in God, we are in each other. "I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me as I in you." . . . There is no separation between humans and God because of this mutual interabiding which expresses the indivisible reality of divine love. We flow into God--and Go into us--because it is the nature of love to flow. . . . The whole and the part live together in mutual, loving reciprocity, each belonging to the other and dependent on the other to show forth the fullness of love.
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.
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.
Try to radiate your love equally to all people instead of just a few. Try to feel that the whole world is your Self, your God. Try to see the Self in all people. Spread your love in all directions as an act of worship and surrender, because everything in the world is a manifestation of God.