Spiritual Things Matter

Love is the subtlest force in the world. ~Mahatma Gandhi

This time of the year is especially contemplative as many will honor Easter. Our churches will be filled with worshipers as they sing their beautiful songs and hymns in perhaps even greater conviction and love they have for God. I too lose myself in beautiful and worshipful hymns and songs as they can touch my deepest parts as nothing else can.

There is something beautiful and gentle about using your voice to sing. Singing with a group of people brings an experience of connectedness and love that I find deeply comforting. When we unite our voices in worship and prayer, we are reminded that each of us is giving, as well as gaining, strength and courage to continue on the path that we have chosen. As we look around, we see many who suffer and many suffer silently for fear that no one would understand. Yet, they continue to worship God because they are deeply convicted that there is strength in His Divine love. I bow in honor to all those who recognize this love.

My heart is pulled towards those who have found many of our churches to be empty of love. Though many words are spoken from our pulpits, it seems that so often the true meaning behind those words are gone. Unfortunately, there are many who feel that our churches have turned into nothing but large social places in which to meet friends and acquaintances in the hopes of perhaps filling some emptiness in their lives. I wonder, though – have we forgotten forgiveness? Where is love and mercy? What happened to sharing peace with our fellow man? It often seems that although the hallways of our churches are full, no one really sees the other. It often seems that each keeps to his own, perhaps out of fear that too much will be asked of them? The longing for genuine community and unconditional love is, I believe, the cry of so many. Yet, many fear to unveil and become authentic. As an alternative, people become islands unto themselves.

Practically everywhere we go, we can see a church on every corner, yet many will never enter them. I think of those who make their homes under our bridges and on our highways. There are many lonely people who live in shelters who have no money with which to purchase their next meal. I think of the children who have been removed from their homes because there was no love to give them, and only anger and hate was their lot. My thoughts go to the many elderly and ill people who were placed in homes and whose loved ones live too far away to even come for a visit. We have our hospitals where lives hang in the balance, and one never knows from one day to the next whether or not they will survive. Thoughts go to our military men and women who bravely offer their service, and even their lives, so that we all might have peace on our soil. May we offer our prayers with love, for their safety, and also for their families who know so many anxious moments, until their loved ones return once again, safely, into their tight embrace.

This Easter, I bow and ask that God will bring our hearts closer to Him. My longing is – that He may teach us how to pray and how to love one another in greater depth and meaning. I pray for His mercy and His peace, and I ask that we would never partake of violence and hate. May our eyes see that through His death, burial and resurrection, His work has been done and it is finished. May our ears hear that mercy, peace, compassion and love – are all that is left. May our hearts understand and embrace this truth – for it is only love that will bring healing and peace to this earth.

I pray that we may all recognize His beauty and through it, be changed into loving, compassionate, and kind human beings.

I wish each of my dear readers a blessed and wonderful Easter!

Love cannot exist without pain. ~The Anchoress

The Anchoress wrote a post that so deeply moved me and it spurred me on to write on this topic myself.

This time of the year, one cannot help but reflect again on the most profound love-gift that has ever been given to man-kind. It is a gift, so precious, so valuable and so indescribable, that all there is left to do is to grasp it firmly into our bosom and try to comprehend, on some level – with our finite minds, the mystery which it holds.

Never before has there been one who descended from heaven and gave himself for man-kind. Only Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, was able to do that because He was commissioned by God, by Himself, to pierce through darkness and enter this linear world of ours. A world, so limited in its understanding, so ignorant of truth, and so sinful of its own making.

He stood among us, this God, this Holy God, and through His son, Jesus Christ, He showed us His heart. With a passion so fierce, He did His work. All that He did was driven by only one prevailing power and that power is Love.

Jesus the Christ displayed compassion, kindness and mercy as no one ever could. There were no formulas to go by. There were no rules to remember. Love operates from the heart and it is reckless in its giving. Love was the only means in which to bring humanity into a life of meaning, of purpose, and of abundance.

God withheld nothing from us!

He knew before He descended from heaven, the pain that He would endure….and conquer. He knew what we, with our finite human mind , could never comprehend. Thus, He spoke in the only language that we could understand. Pain

Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” as He hung suspended between heaven and earth, because of the raw, primitive emotions of hate and envy that men everywhere are capable of at their worst. (Luke 23:34)

His love penetrated though the darkest of dark. All the universe became silent, if even just for a moment, to witness Love in its purest form. To understand once and for all that healing of our broken humanity comes only through the redeeming power of Love.

Love cannot exist without pain.

Those who embrace this understanding, will lay aside formulas and rules to go by. They will, through their own devotion and love for God, reach out to humanity recklessly and unconditionally…with a passionate desire to love. It is in this abandonment to love that transformations will take place right before their eyes. Salvation and healing will be the natural by-product as love pierces through the heart and heals. Love itself can and will heal and make whole the body, mind and spirit.

As we embrace each other with this understanding, let us pray that God will raise up a people in this hour, who know how to love. All of creation groans and travails for such a people to arise. (Rom.8) It is only as we abide in Him, that this will become a possibility. God IS Love and in this Love, Light is manifested. As this pure Light of love is manifested, Truth will stand on its own. Thus, all ignorance and darkness will be no more. (I John 1:5)

It is at this juncture that all tears will be wiped away and pain will no longer have a place in the hearts of men.

Let us never fear to step out to love and to be love. This must be done intelligently, compassionately, and genuinely. Pain exists everywhere without love…but love can never exist without pain…until that final moment of complete understanding, complete enlightenment. This holy sacrifice was given once and for all. The pain of ignorance was beyond human comprehension. It was agony at its worst. Mankind has, at last, been freed from a life of misery and futility. We have been freed into a life of certainty – a life of communion with our Creator.

Yes, indeed, we have been freed into a life without pain – if we can truly comprehend and accept this truth.