Born to love

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I began Lent with a bang by going to church twice. Once to my parish and once with a friend to his Roman Catholic parish. I certainly had ample opportunity to reflect on what this season might mean for me this year.

Several years ago I ended the traditional Lenten practice of giving up something. Sweets. Chocolate. Starbucks. Movies. Eating out. I’ve had friends give up all sorts of things. And while I used to do, it really didn’t  touch anything within me. I really don’t want to give up my chocolate if it isn’t going to result in spiritual growth!

I have a friend who is a pastor in Richmond. She is giving up God. Getting rid of God. Her discipline is rooted in Meister Eckhart’s prayer – God, help me to get rid of God. She wants to relinquish her notions and presuppositions and understandings of God in order to have a deeper and more authentic experience of who God really is, rather than what we make God to be. This sounds good, but to be honest, like too much work for me. That sounds lazy, and it is. But like New Year’s resolutions, it’s pointless for me to set out on a path which I know I can’t stick to for forty days.

So I know what I’m not going to do, but not what I’m going to do. Yet. I do know what I want to accomplish. Lent is a time for me to reflect on myself. Jesus spent his forty days coming to understand who he was and what his purpose was. That’s a tall order for me, and I don’t know that I want the challenge of finding my purpose, but I can take baby steps. I can seek to better understand who I am.

Probably the most recurrent theme in what I write, what I pray about, what I contemplate, is love. A friend recently posted a note on her Facebook page which talked quite a bit about love.

We believe we are hurt when we don’t receive love. But that is not what hurts us. Our pain comes when we do not give love. We were born to love. …. The world has led us to believe that our well-being is dependent on other people loving us. …. The truth is our well-being is dependent on our giving love. It is not about what comes back; it is about what goes out.   --Alan Cohen

I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.
- Ivor Smith-Cameron, Pilgrimage, An Exploration Into God

So maybe this is where I start my Lent. In seeking to give love without return. This is maybe hardest of all. But I think Alan Cohen is right – we are born to love. Our existence comes out of unimaginable, infinite, total generosity. Our being is in the image of Love. May I learn to see myself as this – a creature with the sole purpose, the single goal, of love.

-David