A few days ago I
received a message from Betty Lue Lieber, co-founder of the interfaith program
I am ordained in. She was reporting that there are now 42 ordained Ministers of
Reunion, and she provided us the invitation to "check in" if we would
like to do that.
Immediately, I thought
"4 plus 2 = 6."
The Lovers!
This has been an amazing
week for me. On Monday, my husband's (John’s) business (Johnny on the Spot Window
Cleaning Service) was officially sold to a young man who had been his employee
for years about a decade ago—before falling in love and getting married to a
woman who lived in another state. We have been close, and I performed their
wedding!
Like with most changes we
want (I am thinking of couples with children who want to divorce and then find
they need to cooperate more fully in the new relationship than the previous one,
or a person with a painful joint who undergoes surgery), I am finding this next
phase of freedom—training and assisting the new owner and the new
administrative assistant— is far more challenging than I imagined.
That takes me to this
week’s major awareness as I worked with a client who had a total knee
replacement. As I watched her dance in the debilitating daze of the anesthetic
and narcotics, I was reliving my own postsurgical experience from last
November. I had such compassion for both of us, and I knew there was only ONE
of us and I was actually reliving my
experience. That happens to me more and more now....
Most days I bring
pleasure and well-being to my busyness by riding my bike to the credit union to
make the deposit, or finding a point of connection more clear than windows
while scheduling a job. Even so, more often than I would like, I find my body
in stress as though I am in rush with life or death. This strikes me as very odd
for someone who sees death as the doorway to life eternal.
When I catch myself
armed against the very peace I say I seek, I remember Betty Lue’s saying,
“Awareness without judgment is healing.” I bring my shoulders down, soften my
abdomen, take a breath, and sometimes even express my gratitude for life right out
loud.
Yesterday when I got
back from my weekly trip to Kalamazoo (in addition to having an office here in
Saint Joseph, I am still working part time at Borgess Integrative Medicine at
the Health and Fitness Center in Kalamazoo), the new admin was leaning back in
my office chair looking out my window into the amazing bird sanctuary that is
home to ducks, orioles, jays, cardinals, rose-breasted grossbeak, finches,
robins, doves, and a host of other winged ones. I felt my body cringe...
When he left, assorted
papers were strewn across the surface of MY desk and on MY floor. The outer chaos
churned against my own inner questions about what life will be like without
this distraction which brought the illusion of security into our lives. I
thought immediately about how children often will play the game of, “He/she is
on my side of the _____.” You can fill in the blank... and get the idea.
Every day I remember
that this moment is opportunity for spiritual practice. The best way to express
what I believe about all that now is to share this familiar writing from 1st Corinthians.
I am using a contemporary version called The Message.
1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)
The Way of Love
If I speak with human
eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a
rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all God’s mysteries and
making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain,
"Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything
I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I
don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and
what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies.
Inspired speech will be
over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit.
We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always
incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at
my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left
those infant ways for good.
We don't yet see things
clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long
before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see
it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing God directly just as God knows us!
But for right now, until
that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that
consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And
the best of the three is love.
Ah, yes. The best of the
three is love. And there is great love for each of you!
