Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Beauty

From the sky, in the air, from above, lifting from below.  Cannot be contained, it radiates greater than the sun, from sky to sea to air, into the deepest of deep, above the highest of high, beyond reach yet held for all.

And she called out, pleading, "Take refuge in me.  I will hold you onto the night is over."  It is time for me to give in, to stop my perilous wavering, to stop working towards stillness, and to give in to the stillness of old, the one present before me, beyond me, yet with me.  I need to come home.  My hurts cannot dictate my life any more, I will not be aimlessly lead about, driven to and fro, driven by fear.

Be my mother, my father, my love, my life.  You who are of old, yet entirely new.  You who loves deeper than my capacity to evaluate the depths of love.  You who hold us all, join us together in the contemplative love between each molecule.

As we go deeper, we realize we will never stop this journey.  The depths only open us up to new capacity for depth, in different areas and deeper in the areas already felt by us.  Heaven opens up to us, both livening and relativizing the air we breathe.

Open me up to ever new reality.

Friday, January 8, 2016

At the center of it all

At the center of it all is love, before anything else was, there was love.  Love was with God, love was God.  The Triune relationship radiated love into all that there was, it was enough in itself.  It sought to share what it had, thus creation.  No matter how dark the days seem, we can look back to what was before anything else was, and see what was meant to be.  Love reigns.  Love is supreme.  Love was first.  When I can't trust myself, when my motives seem askew, when I'm not sure if I'm wrong or right, up or down, I can look back to that which was before I ever made a notion in this universe.  Home is found in the returning, I must go back to my origins, what I was meant for.

Some may taste death before tasting love.  Some may never experience love in their whole life.  What of the beaten child?  What of the widowed wife?  Of the heartbroken man?

Love does not shy away from such questions.

Rather, it gives the world radical freedom, so that it can love it for what it is, not what it is controlled to be.  In order to be a world, the world must be free to be a world.  We need not pretend, we need not dress up and put on a pretty mask, we can name our pain, with all the truth we can muster.  Love encourages such things.

But this is not the end of the story.

Where we came from is the same place where all is headed.  Redemption cannot be hidden, it was, is, and finally will be.  All of history flows in the streams of eternity, we must widen our gaze, we must broaden our minds, and take in more.  We can only find our place in the stream of love that also includes all else.  Here, we are all one, yet all unique.  We find our independence, interdependence, and dependence all in one.  We fade into that which is Great.

We find what was at the beginning, that beckons us ask the questions of what is temporary, only to find that which is forever.  Our pain is but a tapestry being woven by the strokes of the Almighty into everlasting joy.

Lord, give me the faith to believe this.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

A return to love

If I believe that love reigns, that it is the first and the final word spoken, than why do I worry?  Why do I plot and plan and scheme?  If I believe that love is the most powerful force in the universe, shouting out good tidings, and turning even darkness to light, why do I fret so?  If I believe that goodness rings the truest call in the universe, that the debt has been payed, that life is to be lived free, why do I put shackles on myself and wrestle with them, only to cut off the nourishing oxygen that I so desperately need?

Everything God does, is done in love, to bring fullness and joy to all people, all of the time.  He seeks to shine into every dark corner, to love the marginalized, to heal the hurting, to share his beauty with all he sees.

A realization of such, should bring not fear upon my soul, not more chains and wrestling, but a return to simplicity.  A return to when I simply trust, no knowing everything, but trusting the movements of grace, and that they are moving.  With such a realization, fear can be let go of and I can experience life in the simplicity and beauty of a flower in the field, both nourished from both the water below, and from the sun above.

God grant me a heart that loves your love, that desires the simplicity of letting your love consume me, let me desire grace for all and for myself.  Be first in my life.