Don't define it - BE IT!

 "Love is not something you do;

          love is someone you are."

Richard Rohr has captured it again.  It's not what you do, it's who you are.

(from the Divine Dance, page 193)

In His Image/Likeness --- we love

 Genesis (1:26) teaches us that God made man "in his image - in his likeness."  Actually, "our" image, "our likeness."  We presume the "our" to be the Trinity:  Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  It is the only thing in the creation narrative that is in God's, The Trinity's image.  Well, what is in "his image"?

I John 4:8 and 16 say - GOD IS LOVE

JESUS says in John 13:34 - "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."  Then a little later says in John 15:12, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you."

Romans 5:5 says, "God love has been poured into our hearts through the HOLY SPIRIT who has been given to us."

So, it is all there.  Do we see it?  Do we tie it together?  If we are in His image, in the image/likeness of the Trinity - we love.  As they say, "Enough said!"

Richard Rohr on the Quest for the Grail

 ...."in the end there is only love.

Love without power is only sentimentality, cheap and innocuous religion.

However, power without love becomes brutality and that's what every culture instinctively moves toward: self-protection and self-aggrandizement.  Once we have learned the truth of the Grail, of love, we cannot believe the world of power is adequate or a correct response to reality.  The heroic journey unites power and love.

Love is not given to us to help us solve our problems. Love, rather, leads us into our problems.  It's love that leads us on the quest and ultimately to a final, universal, and grounding love.  It's a love we can trust because we know it is not all up to us.  We do not have to secure ourselves because we are radically secured - we are beloved children in a benevolent universe.

One true love is all that is necessary."

excerpts from Richard Rohr from his book Quest for the Grail

 "Love is never abstract."

~Wendell Berry

p. 200

What Are People For?

How abstract are you making love?  How real and concrete is your love?

It is not ephemeral.  It is not effete.

It is eternal and it is real.

How can you make your love more real, accessible, available to those around you?

How mature are you?

 "Love is our most mature act as human beings."

page 245

Eugene H. Peterson

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

What is your life painting?

 Artist and missionary to Algeria, Lilias Trotter, wrote in her diary: 

"Measure thy life by loss, not by gain; not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth.  For love's strength standers in love sacrifice, and he who suffers most has most to give."

A great English artist gave up her craft to serve the women and children of Algeria, for the greater good.  By her life she painted the most valuable portrait of life and love.

Val Kilmer's Quote on Love and Healing

"Healing is not born of vanity,

it is born of honesty.

Honesty is born of pure love,

and love is the most divine healer, sweetest, holiest, and most effective."

Val Kilmer

May we all be healed by divine love.