“God’s Exquisite Love!” How exquisite your love, O God! And those who seek your wide wings’ shelter— They feast on the abundance of your house They drink the delights of your streams For you are a fountain of cascading light, You are the light within the light. -Psalm 36 Over the weeks of Lent, I have been writing this weekly e-letter reflecting on our lives as they relate to God’s Exquisite Love, the opening of our hearts to the love and compassion that God is always offering us. This is the third in that series. Today I will talk about the healing of our hearts, the taking up of one’s cross as one faces into life’s challenges. We carry with us the wounds that make it difficult to trust God and others. These wounds come to us from various sources: our childhood, our life’s experience with love and affection (or the lack thereof), and the stories that we have created for ourselves that we are unloved and unlovable. The wounds are deep for all of us, so much of our lives spent addressing, running from or trying to control. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, the last verse of chapter 12, after having spoken about all the various spiritual gifts available to human beings, says, “ I will show you a more excellent way.” That way is outlined and elaborated on in Paul’s famous “Love Chapter,” the 13th Chapter of First Corinthians. What is love’s way?

love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful

It is interesting to me that Paul spends ink telling us what love is not. Not jealous, not boastful, arrogant, rude, insistent on its own way nor irritable nor resentful. When I examine these “nots”, I see that they are all related to our wounds. Why am I jealous? because I feel that I have not received my fair share, or that I don’t measure up. Why am I boastful? Because I am not secure in myself and I need to prove to others I am worthy. Why am I arrogant? Chalk that one up to insecurity and a lack of self-assurance as well. Same with insisting on my own way and being irritable and resentful. Love does not rest in these things. Our wounds represent obstacles to love’s way.

Love is patient and kind…Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. For me love’s way is summed up in being patient and kind, with oneself and with others. Patience and kindness allows love to believe, hope, bear and endure all things. In my personal life, this means being able to look at and to bear my own weakness, shortcoming and failings. I need not shirk away, run away or pretend they don’t exist. Love of self will allow me simply to accept that I am human, and that I am bound to make mistakes – to accept this simply, without overbearing self-judgment or punishment. The same with others. Loving others, I can embrace those others (neighbors, friends, family members AND strangers), with a like measure of acceptance and grace. I need not judge. With inclusion, acceptance and embrace, the magic of love can begin to do its work. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

The “magic of love” leads us to a full understanding of ourselves and our companions (friends and strangers) along life’s way. Though we might often tell ourselves stories about who we are, how we fall short, or how unlovable we see ourselves as being. Though the world might ask us to prove our worthiness. Though we might project our insecurities about ourselves onto others, love tells us another story. Holding fast to love’s (God’s) word, a certain spaciousness opens within us. Our hearts, in the words of John Wesley, feel “strangely warmed.” It is as if the words that God spoke to Jesus at baptism and on the mount of transfiguration become words meant for us, “You are my beloved, upon whom my favor rests.” With that, our identity as God’s beloved is sure. Working that out in our lives is all in the details: what is the life of the God’s beloved? what is this life for? how can we be channels of love’s way in the world? Let’s talk about that next week.

Love,

David