“Here is a book filled with love! And you overlook it in favor of judgement …” Juliet Ashton in “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”
Years ago, I studied a book of love for two years at a seminary. One day, I spent hours sobbing in a restroom because I had just been taught that several people I love would not make it into heaven. I believe now that the anguish I felt was because I was being asked to swallow something that was not true or love.
What if the anger or anguish surfacing in current polarizing conflicts comes from our soul raging against being severed from love? We don’t want to be asked to swallow something that is not true for us. We can’t accept rules that take away love from us. So maybe we could we look through that rainbow flag window pane and see the different colors of love? There, in that space, we will find each other. And that could be love.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. Rumi
You
I believe in you. We may not have met, but this I know: if you and I start talking, I will sense your power and dignity. I will be moved. I will see evidence of truth and beauty in you. My suspicion that you are love will be affirmed. I experience this kind of miracle every day. You are love.
Me
When I view myself and others through that rainbow flag window pane, I see love. I imagine us all freely living out who we are meant to be. I look for alignment of people’s souls with their lives. There is a space for every single one of us being completely and utterly ourselves at this table. We all need to be there. This is love.
Them
“Us versus Them” feels like a common theme these days. Who is “them”? “Them” is the opposing view. It is the group that violates our own personal sense of rightness or wrongness. I have been a “them”. I am still a “them”. Yet at the core of all of “them” is a desire for protection, provision, love. We all have our unique beliefs about how to get there. “They” are love.