Do You Want More Love in Your Life?

 

            Well, this post was supposed to start out in a light and loving way, but I have just witnessed something a few minutes ago that is SO upsetting and SO important in how it relates to this question that I've got to start where I am right now and not where I was an hour ago.

            The specifics are not as important as what I'm feeling because I've just been witness to an act of immeasurable assault and violence and all I want to do is cry and throw up.  It takes me back to my own past that I no longer want to be a part of.  It takes me to what kind of future I do want to be a part of.

            The bottom line?  If we want more love in our lives and in our world, it's what we have got to give and be in our lives and our world.  Not just a random thought about how it makes sense and then a return to whatever issue or concern is facing us in the next moment - but a sustained effort we hold all day, every day.

            We have to talk about love.  We have to listen to loving words and watch loving and empowering images.  We have got to feel loving.  We have got to act loving.  We have got to create lovingly.

            We spend an incredible amount of time viewing violence on our televisions, movies, and computers - as I just did that is both real and imagined.  But here is the key - the imagined is as powerful as the real - because they both come from the same place and they both create the same future.

            This young boy who was just violated deserves my love.  But so does the man who just perpetrated the violence against him.  Hate never creates love.  Feeling hate only creates more of the same - hate and all its effects of violence, rage, pain, and suffering.

           

            It is no accident that earlier this morning I was listening to an interview where a man was describing this same event in his life - and then he kept using the word penetration over and over in different contexts, but always that same word.  This is how we create the world around us.  We believe our words and our stories don't matter - but they do. 

            I was not careful in guarding my own thoughts as I listened to him.  I was not purposeful to shift the images he was sharing and to reframe his words in a way that created harmony and love within me and not sadness and suffering.

            Earlier on my walk I came across a rock arrangement someone had done artistically along the path. It was a circle and inside were two stones balancing one upon the other.  I then took some rocks and added three lines within the circle to make it a peace sign.  It lifted my heart as I joined with the person before me in a message of love and peace.  It was cool.  I thought it was fun.  I hoped they would see it and add to it, but even if they didn't they would feel the connection in our shared spirit.

            Everything affects everything.  Be it love or hate.  All forms of life want more love in their lives, but as humans we are lazy and choose just about everything else but love to focus on first.

      Writing this in this moment is my way of breaking the cycle that began this morning - of replacing images of hate with love, feelings of pain with feelings of love, and of letting the past go so that a future I do want can emerge in this moment - not the someday we all hold on to with hope that is unsupported by our actions.

            The Law of Love is that you will receive what you give to your brother and sister.  Give hate and you get hate.  Give Love and you will receive Love - not the romantic illusionary kind, but the real kind that is the true power in this Universe.