If I just let go of all my pushing and pulling the threads that the study of love tangles me in, I find clarity. A simple, easy understanding.
If we love and God loves, then we, in this matter, are the same. We are as one. Human and God.
It isn’t that often that we can align completely with God.
The difficulty is that we, as humans, do get tangled up by the threads of love. What does it mean? How do I apply it? Why do I trip over my attempts to love, and find myself instead of fulfilled, bruised?
As humans, amazing fleshed souls that we are, we tend to approach love from a “me” perspective. How am I faring in this relationship? Are my needs being met? How do I close the gap between what I envision love to be and how I am experiencing it in reality?
Love, for humans, forces us to define ourselves. To know ourselves. To give up some bits and acquire other bits, and forebear the loss that we experience and endure the gain.
We don’t like change.
And love changes us.
So, let’s face it, for humans, love is a whole lot about grumbling.
Parents, children, friends, lovers.
But this isn’t how God approaches love. How could it be? What limitations does he encounter when he loves? Putting up with unhampered underwear is not something that is going to make God go, tsk.
So I put on my newly-minted Julia/God goggles the other day and said, there has to be alignment in there somewhere.
And I saw it.
Of course, I have other things going on in my mind, so I do, these days, tend to pull on all sorts of studies going on at the same time to make a particular understanding complete.
Let’s look at the soul: for me, a virtual container of what I would call God energy. And our lives, sourcing out of the soul, is an expression of what we do with that energy.
Well, what if that energy could be renamed and called love?
Then it takes on a whole new expression, as it were.
Instead of just being an amorphous, free-roaming energy, out and about in the world to do whatever, it is something that has aim and purpose. A very directed purpose.
And it’s purpose is to heal.
I’ve been thinking a lot (a whole lot) about how souls need healing. But then, I noticed, if healing does occur in a person, it has to come from the soul.
So there is a difference: the difference between a healing soul, and souls in need of healing.
And the difference has to be, to my mind anyway, love. And how it is used in the world.
Not that a soul that has the strength to heal isn’t also a soul also in need of healing.
That’s just life. And time.
And so I have been pondering about this new “placement” of love. And I began to see it as a force, not just a petty emotion that comes and goes depending on the circumstances in our lives. Like sadness. Or surprise.
And I began to understand why we need, as humans, to develop the God aspect of love as best we can. Because if we do this, then love becomes solely about the Other. I’m aiming this force at you.
Which is of course, the teaching of Jesus summed up in a rather slanted and rearranged kind of way.
And then I began to question whether or not this force, this potentially powerful force, was the reason for sin.
To get in touch with this force, this wonder, teaches us to become selfless. And that can be very scary. To give up self. To turn oneself over to caring for the Other.
No matter whom.
And so, if we fudge things up, if we kick the dirt up in our souls so that the force of love becomes clouded and diminished, then we don’t have to feel so bad about forgetting to send our mother a birthday present.
We can be perfectly selfish.
And we may think this is a win-win situation, I can hurt someone and then I don’t ever have to do anything for them, I can be completely selfish, it really is a lose-lose situation.
For obvious reasons.
Most of which is that the more we destroy our own souls, the less strength we have to stop this behavior.
So, again and again and again, we are blessed to be Christians (or at least be thinking about being Christians) and have Jesus who appears to be that one amazingness who can reach in and, no matter how lost in the chaos we are, give us a hand out.
Neat system, that.
I don’t want God’s love; I don’t want to love God; I don’t want to play nice with others in a meaningful way. Oh, wait.
And we find our portal into the security and warmth of God’s love.
Love as a force, that we fight against at times.
Love as a force, that we can use to fight chaos with.
God in us.
Amen.