LOVE LOOKS LIKE A MELTING PATH

We were frozen in time last week: wintertime, harsh, biting, bitter treacherous beautiful days. Ice wrapped round each branch of every shrub and tree. How could anything survive such a deep freeze? Paths and roads were like icicles in motion as black and grey ice made moving forward a monumental task. Sun and warmth finally arrived and we began to thaw.

How true this is for our lives at times. We find ourselves like a snapshot, frozen with the emotion of a certain time and unsure, unable, perhaps even unwilling to go forward, as if staying where our heart is frozen would be a better option than letting it defrost all around. Fear grips us and grabs hold of our hearts paralyzing us and we freeze simply because moving seems so dangerous- we don't know how to move or what step to take next.

In a world filled with conflict and hatred, and in families and relationships caught in tension and misunderstanding, do we just freeze? We stop, shut down, disengage and lose heart, when all the while what is needed is love and light to warm our own hearts and kindness to allow what's frozen in us to begin melting. 

Our souls are thirsting for living water, where we can soak up the love and grace we need to nourish and sustain us for the journey. Allowing the love of God to touch all that is hard, bitter, cold, and harsh within is essential if we want to find a path forward.

There is One who can touch what's hurting inside with the warmth of His love.

Medicine from Sacred Writings:

"To Thee I feel I must return; I knock; may Thy door be opened to me; 

teach me the way to Thee." 

St. Augustine 

Soliloquies Book 1.6

LOVE LOOKS LIKE A DRESS

I encountered a few women in the fitting rooms this afternoon helping their friend find a mother of the groom dress; I chuckled to myself because that was my errand as I entered the department store. They were laughing and joking, "No, not that one, it's too sheer; oh, that one is perfect- so flattering!" I could hear their running commentary as I tried on dress after dress for our son's wedding. Funny. We clothe ourselves in certain ways because we love those we are celebrating with.  As I kept shedding garments and trying on new ones, I realized the connection to our emotional and spiritual life. How I live and act, you could say "dress," in the world is a reflection of the "running commentary" in my mind and heart.

Here's some interesting fodder for that commentary of mind and heart:

"I delight greatly in the Lord, my soul rejoices in my God.

 For He has clothed me with garments of salvation

 and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, 

as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest 

and as a bride adorns herself with jewels," 

Isaiah 61:10

How I see how God sees me helps me get dressed in the morning and gives me the grace to take on the challenge of dressing and acting as God asks:

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, 

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

 Bear with one another and forgive one another whatever grievances you may have 

against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 

And over all these virtues put on love, 

which binds them all together in perfect unity," 

Colossians 3:12-14

That, my friends, is quite a wardrobe! 

Will we let the Lord who loves us inform what we wear in the world? He loves us with an everlasting love and wants us to dress as if we are loved, so we can love.

Medicine from Sacred Writings:

                                 "He that is beloved walks with great unrestraint 
                                         within the heart of Him who loves him." 

                                St John Chrysostom Homily XIII on 2 Corinthians

LOVE LOOKS LIKE SOUP

It seems strange, I know. I want love to look like a big fanfare and a huge project and a deep connection, but today love looks like chicken soup. Sure, you've guessed it, someone is sick in our house and so I do what I do, and it seems small and insignificant and trivial, but soup nourishes our bodies. I wonder, is it love that nourishes the soul?

I'm not good at love at all. I'm most likely a classic case for a counselor with a PhD; unresolved childhood issues, insecure at times, boundary issues, over-responsible and probably co-dependent with everyone including the dog, but I know how to make homemade Shaker chicken noodle soup. Sure, today, of all days when I am weary and worn I had thick long noodles instead of the regular Pennsylvania Dutch wide egg noodles; it wasn't perfect and that's how love is.

It is daily and a struggle.

I have clothes to wear when I cook... I put on an apron to keep me protected from the mess. I wonder. Could I clothe myself in compassion and kindness, humility and gentleness to protect myself from the mess of the world and the mess of my own humanity.

Chrysostom calls to me again, to look at my life as lived before my King, day in, day out, one batch of soup at a time, and see if each day finds me kind and gentle. Can we live in the love He has for us, clothed in His love as He clothed Himself in our humanity, so that we might bring His peace to the broken, the lost and those needing a bowl of soup?

Medicine from Sacred Scripture:

"The King is everywhere present, and observes what is done...let us show forth in our life much gentleness, much purity, for we have a King who beholds all our actions continually. In order then that this light  may ever richly enlighten us, let us gladly accept these bright beams, for so shall we enjoy both the good things present and those to come, through the grace and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ."

St. John Chrysostom

Homily VI on John 14.25