I've learned a couple lessons recently. First of which is that I am blessed. I am blessed with friends, and love, and the Gospel, and music, and theater, and family, and food, and shelter, and health, and laughter, and children, and knowledge, and learning, and happiness... yes! Happiness. I count it as my greatest blessing, as it is, after all, the entitlement I have as a Child of God. It's called THE Plan of HAPPINESS. The next is that I am capable of so much love, and I love being capable of that much love. And then I realized, that we're ALL capable of love. Most of us are just afraid of it.
I've come to find love to be a perfect dwelling of all emotions, tempered accordingly to their necessity and usage, in one home, under one roof, for one person. But just like a home, these emotions go about their day, they go out shopping, they go to work, they sit at home, they procrastinate. They are capable of and do everything that we do. And the most eager to unchain itself and make itself known, is Love.
I think people are afraid of Love because it's so powerful. In a quote by Marianne Williamson she says, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness,
that frightens us most." Love is an eager and powerful emotion, and we are eager and powerful people... we just don't know it yet. And those that do, understand the power of Love and utilize it to our fullest. "We ask ourselves," she continues, " 'Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You
are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There
is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel
insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that
is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when
we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.” There is such great potency in this statement. 'As we are liberated from our own fear, our
presence automatically liberates others.' It's a statement that swings infinitely full circle. Someone has to liberate us in order for us to liberate others, someone must show us love before we understand how beautiful it is to have and share it with others. There are exceptions, there are those that love unconditionally, and to them, the world is at their feet!
But what I've come to find is that our emotions are not finite. There is no limit to how much we can love. We feel uncomfortable loving others because it stretches our boundaries, but there is no limit; we simply grow, our potential to love increases and we are bigger in spirit and love. When a mother has multiple children, she does not divide her love amongst her children equally, she simply grows in love. She learns to expand her knowledge, and care, and compassion, and heart; and all the love that she once felt for her first and only child she begins to feel for all her children on that very level. When you love someone unconditionally, it doesn't mean that you can't love anyone else... as a matter of fact that's probably when you SHOULD love EVERYONE else! The only limit to your love, is the time spent in which you get to share it. That's the only stipulation... otherwise, there are no rules in love.
Sometimes my love is a little much for people. Sometimes I trust and love and go about caring much too much for the comfort of the normal person, and I'm coming to understand that, and I'm learning to be okay with it. And I'm also learning, step by step, how I might share that never ending love with them, that they might know how brilliant it is, and want nothing else but to share it with everyone else, the way I want to as well. But once we're there, we are committed to being responsible for that love, and "unconditionalness" to everyone that we share it with... a little intimidating right, but that's our potential... “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness,
that frightens us most."
Are we willing to make an "unconditional" commitment to being unconditionally kind to
our immediate, embodied experience? That no matter what fear happens to appear, what kind of
shame comes to visit, whichever anxiety arrives for tea, whatever conflict sneaks through the back door of the back porch, however much the need to "unlove" shows up unannounced at your wedding, however often sadness drowns each and every cell of
this precious heart – that these grace-guests will be received in the
most luminous, vast field of kindness? Are we willing, somehow, to love
ourselves so much that these ones will not be turned away, that they
will be met directly, held, allowed in, and touched? – for we know that
they come showering gifts from beyond. How can we ever expect to love, and to serve, and to care for others when we are putting up walls and restrictions on our very selves.
Are we willing to surrender, once
and for all, the frenetic spiritual-scramble to organize our lives
around feeling good or having certain “powerful” experiences or
otherwise staying safe in our spiritualities of experience and
specialness? Are we willing to stay unbearably close to this sensual
reality, to these tender hearts, allowing EVERYTHING and EVERYONE to
matter, so deeply that we find ourselves falling excruciatingly in love
moment-by-moment - naked, exposed, unresolved, and utterly vulnerable
forever?
Will we, even if for just a moment, set aside our habitual
escape-routes of transcendence, our doubts and potentials that tell us nothing
matters and we’re “above it all,” soon to arrive in some landing place
of protection, hope, and security that we might call heaven – safe from the terrifying
reorganization, nakedness, and constant change that love always demands? In place of
this transcendence, all that is left is an unbearable intimacy with this
life as it is, with this one-and-only utterly precious somatic reality;
and raging, effulgent, ethereal movement of grace that assembled this body, cell by
cell, thought by thought, emotion by emotion, story by story, love by love, failure by failure, hope by hope, glance by glance. It is everything good rolled up in one terrifying learning experience, devoted holistically to change and betterment.
Yes, this grace is sometimes sweet, often terribly fierce, and
will demand EVERYTHING from us. We know we will no longer be able to
find ground, security, protection, or identity in "ourselves," in our "walls," in our "facades,"
and we will be facing very soon all of our fears of intimacy and its
inevitable shattering of safety. And most importantly we will find that if we are crazy enough to give everything for
love, that this heart WILL (not might be), be broken open, piece
by piece, and that it will never, ever, ever, be reassembled again, the way it once was. We will be left in tatters forever, feeling everything,
unbearably exposed to the movement of love in this world of time and
space; even the wind blowing or the sun rising or the birds singing or
looking for one precious second into the eyes of the one checking you
out at the grocery store may be too much; the utter preciousness of this
life may shut this heart, this body, these senses down. There is
nothing left to hold onto, nothing left to “achieve” with our
spiritualities of specialness; nothing left to get for “me,” but only
everything to give. From here it is one endless miracle, moment by
moment, and utter wonder by utter wonder as to how love will make use of this body –
these eyes to see, these hands to so sweetly touch those around us,
these words to speak kindness, and this broken open heart to feel
utterly everything...
That, is Love.
If you are reading this still, I Love You! Know how much I love you, and always will... Endlessly. I want nothing more then to share the love that I have with you. 1 Nephi 8:11-12, "And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit
thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever
before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to
exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen. And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit"
Love is desirable above all fruit, and I want to share it with you. In these deep welled tears that I shed for you now, you reading, know that you are loved, know that our Father in Heaven loves you. I love you, He loves you, you are loved, always and forever. Do Good, Say Good, Be Good, and Spread Good and live your life as an example that you may SHOW others the way to God and His Love, through Your love. May God bless you, and may you fall to your knees in loving prayer everyday for those that you love, in gratitude, in love, and in blessing. I love you, and this Gospel. I love, I love, I love.
