Loving

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I have been thinking about love lately, what it is, how it feels like, what it means to say that “God is love”?

I am not talking about sentimental, romantic, or erotic love here, not the kind of love that predominates our culture, is conditional and more about getting than giving.  This is the commercialized love that corporations force feed us to make billions convincing us that their lotion, pills, home insurance will bring us a love that will shield us from loss, pain, loneliness, illness, and aging. Men will be made brave and virile, women irresistibly beautiful and these are the most important goals in life.

Because of the way that love has been hijacked and distorted by our culture, the word itself has lost real meaning.  I come closer to knowing what loving is through the terms compassion and tenderness.  Love here as a tenderness of heart as much a practice as a stance. Real love is not about hoarding, collecting, or accumulating affections.  But opening up the heart to a flow of tenderness and compassion for ourselves and others.  This flow emanates from a divine source through all our hearts – although the ego likes to claim it has been earned from good looks, behavior, intelligence, strength.  Loving is always more about what we are surrendering to than what we hope to possess.  It flows through us to our beloveds, our neighbors, our church, community, and also to the mountains, forests, the rivers, the suffering of the world.  It is through our tender and broken open hearts that God through this kind of loving comes into the world.

As I allow myself to be more tender, I have greater capacity for caring unconditionally for others, the chance to be more generous with others and less selfish before I die. When I am fed by this deeper source of loving, I can be more giving in my loving. I can let them others be, let them go, do loving without needing so much in return. My heart can stay connected to another at this deeper level even if on the surface level there is strife.  When I know the brevity of my own life, the life of all others, its preciousness and mystery, loving in this tender way helps me to find the meaning and purpose at the ground of my being.

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