It's another Monday. This is the day that most signifies new beginnings to me. I started off with a bang and actually got up and hiked the most difficult path close to my home. I found myself blessed with the sights and sounds of winters escape in the roar of a spring that crossed my path.
The last section of this particular hike is a VERY steep uphill climb that even on my most physically fit and conditioned day makes my heart want to leap out of my chest. Today, on a very deconditioned and unphysically fit day, I made it up. I felt like I could do anything, there is such power in the accomplishment of a challenge.
I then went to my next activity, which is my time with God. This morning was particularly powerful as I sought the answer to the question "how do we love if no one needs anything from us?"
The deeper part of this idea is that as a woman, much of our focus on loving others is to help and take care of those we love. But how do we love another who doesn't need us? How do we give love to someone that is healthy and happy as they are? Almost every role we have as women is one in which we are the caretakers of another.
In looking for my answer I came across a section in A Course in Miracles which describes God's relationship to us. It states that God created us to share in its happiness. In fact, the entire purpose of our relationship was to make happy - and nothing else. But we are also told that God gave us everything the moment we were created.
Which leads me back to the question, how do we love someone who doesn't need anything from us and we don't need anything from them? In our quest to love, so often we assume that the focus of our attention either lacks something we can give them or we lack something they can give us. But what does love look like with two whole individuals, neither needing anything?
I then was blessed with one of those amazing God moments that really knocked me off my center. My Monday now feels like an ending, not a beginning. I have no desire to really go and do anything because I feel like I already have everything I need.
In addition, I think the only answer I can find to this question is when I think about my relationship with my animals. They don't love me because I am missing something they think they can give me. They just love me because I'm the only one sitting next to them in that moment. They love me just because I am. And that brings both them and me great joy - because I feel the same way, I just love them because they are…and that's enough.
Yes, there are moments when we as humans need each other. Sometimes we need each other a lot, others not at all. But love is something that really just is. The truth of love gets lost when we try and force it into a specific act or ask it to wear a label that doesn't belong to it.
When The Course tells me that the purpose of a relationship is "to make happy," I know that can go one of two ways. Either I believe that there is something you must do so that I can be happy with you OR you need do nothing and I am happy because you don't need anything at all.
As a woman my role in this world gets confusing when I try and view myself as not my role as caretaker, mother, wife, parent, friend. Who am I without these labels? What is a relationship in which we are both whole and complete really like? How do I love another who doesn't need anything from me? Can I?
Just a few questions to think about on this Monday morning!
Jill
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