Of Love and Prayer

Recently, I participated in a synchronized blogging event on the subject of prayer. Over 40 people contributed, from a wide variety of Christian perspectives.

One thing really struck me as I read the various posts; the Love. Every person who wrote beautifully articulated, in their own words, the ways in which they experience Love for and intimacy with God. Likewise, every person who commented on each post did so with Love and grace, never challenging another person's practice of prayer or their expression of faith.

I like to see this as evidence of a shift in Christianity many of us are becoming aware of, a shift from each of us believing we have all the right answers for the Christian life, applicable to everyone...to believing many diverse answers are acceptable, and even desirable.

Really what I'm getting at is simple...that we could all relate to each other in a way which accepts the reality of God relating to each of us differently, and each of us understanding we do not possess the right to exclude someone based on how God relates to that person.

I saw evidence it is possible this week in the way a diverse group of people treated each other with respect and gentleness and Love.

Retroactive Love

Several years ago I ran across some articles by a man who had spent his childhood in an orphanage. Richard's stories were heartwrenching; full of abuse, neglect and torment. I wrote and told him how sorry I was for all that he had suffered growing up, and we exchanged email back and forth. Although he was about 70-years-old he told me how long it took for him to learn how to love people, and how disasterous his first and second marriages were. He was happily married for a third time, but said that his wife didn't understand one ritual that he had kept through the years.

Every Christmas he would buy his young boy self a Christmas present. Through counseling Richard had had to travel back and heal the young boy who had been so hurt and abandoned, and a part of the healing he held on to was buying and wrapping a new toy every Christmas for six-year-old "Richie"; something he'd never had growing up. From our exchange of letters I came to know that one thing that Richard had so strongly wished for was a mother who loved and cherished him.

I told him that I wished I could go back in time and be his mother for him. I said how I wished that little Richie would have come through the door after school to a real home, and that I would be there waiting with a smile, a hug, and a warm plate of cookies, anxious to hear all about his day. I told him if I'd been his mother I would have read him stories at bedtime, sung lullabies, tucked him snugly under the blankets, and said a prayer with him. And then I would have kissed him good night and told him I loved him.

Richard wrote back and said that he knew I would have done those things, he knew that I would have been that kind of mother for him. I hope in some small way that I was another little piece of his journey to healing such a broken childhood. I think for a moment together we both rewrote the past and filled it with love.

rest in Love

Lord, teach me to rest in you.
Teach me to see the sky and to think of nothing else,
but the joy of it. Teach me to look at field and flower and be soothed by colors and seasons. Teach me to close my eyes and to rest in the Love that has supported me all my days. Teach me, Lord, to rest in you.

Frank Topping

(photo by omnia)

Love Bug: Infectious?

I turned on the radio the other day and heard the words “Global Warming.” As I reached to change the station, I realized the discussion was not what I assumed it would be. I didn’t hear it all, but it was about our inability to be in control of the situation without accessing the power of our Creator.

Here is my take on it. Man’s efforts to change our environment, assumes Man has the ability to change the course of Nature. Man can figure it all out and decide what everyone needs to do for everything to be OK. It assumes our Creator either doesn’t care, or is not capable of doing anything about the destruction Man has and continues to wrought.

When Man tries to control anything and fails, then the finger pointing starts, who did this and how can we stop them? Then divisions and politics…I don’t have to describe the “crisis” to you. The negativity affects everyone and everything around it. Collective consciousness. Infectious mob-mentality with Fear being the Initiator.

It is the same with individuals. Have you ever seen a person ruin something beautiful with negativity alone? Like a negative presence in a team effort, or in an event in which folks just want to have fun? Have you ever had someone misjudge your good intentions? turn away from you, ignore you repeatedly? The negative “vibes” are palpable and take their toll. It is very difficult to be transformed in that kind of environment, much less experience any kind of peace, without Divine intervention. Maybe our earth “feels” the same way.

What if we put the Intention of our Creator back in the big picture with regard to our own thoughts of the planet and others? The Creator’s “intention” really can’t be known, but can be seen as the “thought prior to the act of Creation”, which is a presence of will, openness, radiance, truth and beauty, and an absence of fear and judgment. That can be described as LOVE. And as creations of Love, it is knit inside each of us, just waiting to be recognized and used for the greater good.

Infectious mob mentality with Love as the Initiator - Just something to ponder.

Peace, Keren

Photo courtesy of Darla Winn

Another puzzle piece = Super Love Rays

So I have this image in my mind, that all of the blogs on this site are pieces of a giant love jigsaw puzzle. It is naturally an enormous puzzle. And the edges reach off into infinity.

Here is another one of my pieces.

Prayer can be a perplexing thing. Are we praying in Godś will? Are we saying it the right way? Have we quoted a sufficient quantity of bible verses? Is the prayer too long or too short?

Again, it was during the drive to work that I came to this understanding. ¨Love is the power of prayer.¨ There is not power in our hitting on the correct formula for prayer. I think that is the same as treating prayer like a magical incantation.

The great Love that God has for us is directed to others in prayer. That is the power of prayer.

I wrote it up for my kids like this:

¨Your mommy believes if you listen, you'll hear
Godś voice of Love in your heart, so clear.
He´ll fill you so full of His love, when you pray
For others you'll send them His Super Love Rays.¨

Highway 77 and I35

In 1987 after participating in several fundamentalist groups, I left them because I came to realize that I was drawn to God in the early 70s only by His great love for me. It was not a particular church group. I did not walk down an aisle. As a teenager, I sat on a bale of hay in the evenings, looked at the moon and talked to God. I knew He loved me just like I was.

Throughout the 90s, I read Daily Guideposts, and thought about love some, but most spiritual thought was up on a shelf.

The death of my mother in 2004 sent me into a spiritual slump. I had depended on her for strength and guidance. As I tried to climb out, I read Daily Guideposts even more. Friends gave me two books, The Celestine Prophecy and For the Love of God: A Handbook for the Spirit. Those books pointed to love.

Jesus said that all of the law and prophets are fulfilled in this saying, ¨Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.¨ Recently, I have come to believe that God is far bigger than we know. God´s love for us is beyond what we understand. Learning about Love is like putting together a big jigsaw puzzle.

Here is one of my pieces . . .

I used to attend churches that celebrated the power of the Holy Spirit. It was a hocus pocus Harry Potter type power. It would bring riches and personal control to those who could wield it.

Last year, on my way to work as I was coming to a stop sign on highway 77 next to interstate 35, I felt Godś voice inside me saying . . . ¨Love is the power of the Holy Spirit.¨

Love is the power of the Holy Spirit?

Yeah.

Beannact

Beannacht ("Blessing")
by John O’Donohue

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

what if love

what if love is real

what if love is true

and there is something divine living within you

and this world is an illusion and death is not the end

and whatever is beautiful dies will rise again

and all we have to do is seek and believe

and open up our hearts and the light receive

the darkness will fade and we'll come a shining through

o what if love is real

what if love is true.

(sent by a special myspace friend, photo by koreana)

Gallery Picture of the Week

Strong Heart

From the photographer: "My friend gave me this heart when she was visiting me for five days. It reminds me of a gorgeous piece of beach glass. I've hung it in a window that overlooks my small front porch, so that it greets me every time I walk up the steps, a reminder of how grateful I am to have met her 43 years ago...an instant friendship that has never wavered, but has only grown stronger with time. "

Go with love, Miles Levin

Miles Levin, whose blog inspired thousands, dies
Laura Berman / The Detroit News

Miles Alpern Levin, whose on-line writings about his fight against cancer inspired and moved thousands of readers, died early this morning at home in Bloomfield Township.
Two years ago, he was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer of the soft tissues.

After the diagnosis in June 2005, he consciously made his ensuing battle with the deadly cancer into his life's work. He reinvented himself, growing quickly from a funny and forgetful teen into a conscientious student and a writer who acquired an international following.

Miles made the final two years of his life count in unexpected ways, and to a vast and growing audience, on carepages.com, an online blog. His parents, Jon and Nancy Levin, and sister, Nina, 16, also became familiar to the international audience who signed in to read "LevinStory," on a regular basis.

From the time his story became public in this Detroit News column on April 23 until his death, he used his growing recognition to teach lessons about living and dying. He graduated from Cranbrook's Upper School. He also delivered a commencement speech beside Bob Woodruff, the former ABC anchor who became his friend. In a letter to Miles, Woodruff told him, "You are my teacher, my hero, my friend."

At the June commencement ceremonies, Miles, 18, urged his classmates to seek justice in the world. "If my struggle with cancer galvanizes actions of goodness," he told them, " I can rest assured that even if I succumb to the rogue cells I will leave behind a legacy of victory. Dying is not what scares me. It's dying and having had no impact."

With a limited time to grow up, he acquired maturity. With a deadline looming, he found a voice and a way to give his life meaning by writing. Tentatively at first, then more forcefully, he began to see himself as a teacher about cancer and life.

As he wrote, he developed virtuosity with words that matched his newfound purpose.
He willingly endured severe pain and torturous chemotherapy treatments -- excruciating nausea, weakness, and pain -- trading off weeks of sick days for a few good ones. His passion for life was matched only by his insistence that it be a good life, a meaningful one. What the world most needs, he said in his last days, is "more kindness."

The disease retreated last December then attacked again within weeks. He and his oncologist Dr. Leonard Wexler, pediatric oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York, geared treatment to his planned graduation from Cranbrook.

By the time that day came, his words on a hospital blog had enlisted regular readers from India to Brazil, from Japan to Israel, who came to know his family, his girlfriend, his doctors and treatment options as if he were a family member.

On the Cranbrook Schools campus, he became an outsized object of admiration and awe. Students wore t-shirts honoring one of his sayings ("Keep fighting, stop struggling"), and organized a fund-raising walk in his honor.

Although few of his thousands of blog readers had ever met him, they wrote using adjectives of awe, describing him as a teacher and themselves, most often, as "grateful" to hear his lessons. He compared his life to a golfer swinging gaily at a bucket of golf balls, until only a few remain. "Now with just a handful left," he wrote, "each swing becomes more meaningful."

Although he'd been accepted at Kalamazoo College, Miles did not believe he would be able to attend college in the fall.

Over the last year, he won several awards, including the Sarcoma Foundation of America's Leadership & Courage Award for 2008. Accepting the award, he said, "The universe is more cruel and random than we would like it to be," calling childhood sarcoma a "total injustice."
But that knowledge never made him bitter. "I just have to keep going, to search for a higher meaning," he said. To do so was a way to squeeze more out of life, and vanquish death.

He tried to think of cancer as a gift. "I am living more richly than I ever was before cancer, so if I die, will it have been worth it just to get these years of superliving?" he asked at one point.
Mostly, he wanted to live as well as he possibly could. He strived, consciously, for saintliness -- an uncommon aspiration for an affluent 21st century American teen.

Although he was mature beyond his years, he was young and idealistic enough to imagine he could be a beacon of light and wisdom to others.

And he was.

Photo by Tina Feneberg, Associated Press

Who is doing the pursuing?

Do you think, that after successful seeking, we find God/Love in our lives and everything becomes perfectly wonderful all of the time, and we walk in perfect confidence, love and happiness?

To me, it is more like this. Once I began to recognize the call, the prodding … the tickles even - inviting and enticing me to respond to God/our Creator/to Love - the relationship didn’t become instantly perfect and complete, and neither did I. Oh no, that was only when the real pursuit began.

There is movement, not necessarily forward … it undulates. Like the ocean, it takes us up and down, back and forth, sometimes peaceful, sometimes in a rage, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, sometimes going nowhere.

Or …a flirtation. Where will It go next? Unpredictable, but like the scarf in the photo, responding to the wind and the movements of the girl, He beckons us to follow.

Photo courtesy of Darla Winn

seeing more

this morning i received an email from a good friend who shared an experience she had when she was out with a friend. she described, "…how the power of God's love just rushed like a torrent through my body, and the world just looked totally different than normal." i knew exactly what she meant. have you experienced this before? seems like the last couple years that i've become much more aware of a deep bond between myself and all creatures. it began by my realizing that i share the vulnerability and mortality of my physical form with every other human being and living creature. then, this bond extended to the realization that there is a spiritual or divine reality that is at the core of all living things, especially all other humans. every person has a Self that bears the image and likeness of God. every person has a Self that is beloved of God. every person has a Self, which is capable of realizing and being all that that Self was intended to be. when i am aware of that Self within me, i ammore aware of that Self in others, and often it feels like what my friend described…God's love rushing like a torrent through my body and opening my eyes to see a spiritual reality beyond a world of bodies and things.

(photo/design by AnneGogh)

Love & '95 Dodge Neons

Last Saturday I finally met Bob Smith at the car repair shop where he works as service manager. His parents were related through marriage to my stepdad, and I'd had a couple of delightful conversations with his mother when she was still alive. I'd never met any of their children, though.

As a surprise gift my dad had decided to see if it was worth fixing my son's old car. It has almost 230,000 miles on it, so we certainly weren't sure. But he decided to invest some money and see if we could keep my son's wheels on the road a little longer. So my stepdad called Bob.

I stood there at the service counter with my son while Bob, a man close to my age in his 50s, dressed in dark blue overalls, busied himself with our paper work. I waited while he looked over the invoice and explained everything that had been fixed on the '95 Dodge Neon. There was a slight pause before he started to ring up the total, and I decided to speak into that pause.

"I just want you to know," I said, "that I liked your mother so much." Bob's business countenance disappeared, and in a split second his face registered pure joy. "She was so wonderful," he said. "As time goes on there aren't that many people who remember Mom, and it's so nice to hear someone say something about her."

My father died when I was 17 and occasionally through the years I've had people stop and tell me a story about him. I know from experience how wonderful that can be, especially when someone's been gone a long time. I knew before I went to get my son's car that I would mention this lovely lady to her son if the opportunity presented itself, and I'm so glad it did. I know my words to him were a gift, and the gift to me was seeing the love that flooded this man's face as soon as I spoke of his beloved mother.

go in peace

How and what others think about me is none of my business. I am only responsible for giving unconditional love and acceptance to everyone, and then going my way in peace, detached from their response and opinion of me.
Gary Vacca

(photo by suZen)

pure love

i've had some contact through email the last few months with Miles Levin, a teenager dying of cancer. i interviewed him a while back about his journey into human death. he appears to be close to that point, and today his mother wrote on his blog...

"There is less and less of Miles, and more and more of just pure love."

(photo by joey kennedy)

TLIO Interview With Jim (Part III)

Turn Love Inside Out
Interview with Jim (Part III)

Jim, why should people listen to you about love?

I start each day as a beginner. Anything I say about Love on this site is likely just scratching the surface. A Buddhist friend recently cautioned me that when I point to the moon, not to confuse my finger for the moon. In other words, whatever I say about God or Love is a finger pointing to these realities but not the realities themselves. Truly knowing God or Love is something deeply personal and spiritual; it’s not simply a matter of passing along information and concepts.

So, I am just a nobody sharing my own life journey and what I’m discovering and experiencing. I hope anything I say will encourage others to desire Truth and be open to Love. Any Truth I’ve discovered or been awakened to is not original to me, and I take no credit for it. Truth has been presenting itself since the beginning of humankind; no Truth is really “new” Truth. If it’s Truth today, it has always been so. For me, the more I have grown in Love – understanding Love as God’s identity, accepting Love as my identity created in God’s image, discovering the source of Love within myself where Love’s presence dwells, abiding in Love, and allowing myself to be and give Love without condition – the more motivated I’ve been to open myself to God.

Has Christianity been a help or hindrance for you in receiving, embracing, and being Love?

I write a lot about this in upcoming Wide Open Spaces. On the one hand, I could easily say that the “Christianity” I bought into was mostly a hindrance to my receiving, embracing, and being Love, and I share several examples of this in the book. And yet, it was the dissatisfaction and suffering this “Christianity” produced inside me that led to my discovering Truth, which as Jesus said, “sets us free.” My journey in and through counterfeit Christianity is all part of my story of freedom, and so I don’t regret or judge it. As you can see, I put “Christianity” in quotes because much of what I once passed off as “Christianity” didn’t seem to line up too well with the life and message of Jesus Christ.

Jesus once said, “I am the way.” Let me just give you one small example of how the “Christ-way” has become a significant aspect of my life. Jesus’ way of life was one of dependency on the Father. In other words, the Christ-way is an abiding way. In every moment, I have a choice. If I want to, I can go out into the world and strive to get acceptance, worth, peace, joy, love, life, purpose, and freedom. Or, I can receive these from God’s presence within me, which is available unconditionally and all the time. To know or experience God’s presence inside is to be at peace, to be free, to be joy, to be love, to be whole and lacking nothing. Why would I go out into the world and scratch and claw for pseudo versions of these, when I can have the real deal by simply abiding in God’s presence within me? Jesus demonstrated this kind of abiding life with every breath.

Jim, is unconditional love and acceptance a license for people to not change?

The heartache and suffering of our world stems from our alienation from the deepest truth and the springs of spiritual life within us, and our estrangement from God. Paul wrote in Titus 2:11, “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It (the grace of God) teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” So what transforms a person to no longer live according to worldly passions of greed, lust, pride, and hate? According to Paul, the answer is “the grace of God”—the unconditional love and acceptance of God.

How people change is a paradox. Human logic says if we love and accept people unconditionally, it will encourage them to continue destructive behaviors. According to Paul, it’s actually what enables or empowers them to say no to these behaviors. Withholding unconditional love from others deprives people access to the only power, the only force, the only reality, the only possibility that can transform their lives and the central truth that gives meaning to all of existence. When I am consciously aware of and dependent upon God’s unconditional love and acceptance of me, it is much easier for me to extend this love and acceptance to others. This is another principle of the abiding way: you can’t bear love if you yourself are not abiding in Love. Love isn’t something you create; it’s something that when you plug into it, it overflows from you.

Even as overflow, it’s not always a human bed of roses. True love has a certain grit and staying power to it. Despite his disciples being stubborn and slow to learn, Jesus patiently stuck with them to the very end. People of his ethnic and religious roots rejected him, his closest friends betrayed him, but Jesus continued choosing love. His last words to humanity before his death, spoken after they nailed him to a cross of their making were words of love, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Many of the first Christians met the same fate as a result of living the abiding way, and died as martyrs.


(photo by beatdrifter)

Receive a miracle today

Since I waited until my forties to have children, there were things I never understood about my mother until now. I did not know what she meant when she said, ¨I have so much to do that it makes me tired just thinking about it.¨ :)

And there was that occasional look on her face that puzzled me too. Today I know that expression well. It is called exasperation.

It seems to me that exasperation is a point where I can pause and choose my next step. How am I going to respond to those two little squirts who brought me to this point? (Probably I just cleaned a room and they have in only 5 minutes scattered toys all over it again.) Can I choose love?

I am trying to practice Dan Josephś suggestion in his book, Inspired by Miracles (based on his personal interpretation of the Course in Miracles, http://danjoseph.com).

When faced with exasperation, Dan proposes that if I can pause and ask God, ¨how do You see this situation?¨ Or say, ¨God, how do You view this person?¨ And then, ¨I open myself to Your thoughts, Your view, Your love. I receive the miracle of Your love for this person and these events.¨

I believe these love miracles are true, constant, sure, and always available.

Boy oh boy, it really helps if I can only seize the opportunity of exasperation. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don´t (and I need the zipper!).

Today a bunch of little kids are coming over to play. ¨Dear God, help me see them with Your eyes and love them with Your love. It will be a challenge because I have lots of housework to do.¨

Yeah . . . bring it on! :)

Picture of the Week

perhaps you've been noticing that each week we select a picture from out TLIO flickr group to display on our site in the "Gallery" section. beginning this week, each Monday we are going to present that pic on the blog. we hope these images of Love stimulate an awarness of Love within ourselves, and inspire us to be Love. feel free to comment on how each week's picture is meaningful to you. this week's pic by conceptvessel originally included the below quote:

"That which we acquire by contemplation we should spend in love."

Okay, so you don't really have to watch the little animation thing, but rather just listen to the song. The title is "True Love Will Find You in the End", by Daniel Johnston, an artist popular amongst the indie and folk scenes. He's bipolar, lives with his parents in Waller, Texas, and his music has been covered by over 150 popular artists, inspiring even more. He's most well known for his amazing songwriting ability and the rawness of his performances (he's not a great singer or guitar player). In the past week or so, this song has been stuck in my head. I decided to look up the lyrics -

True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don't be sad, I know you will,
But dont give up until
True love will find you in the end
This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking can it find you
‘Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
Unless you step out into the light?
Don't be sad i know you will
But don’t give up until
True love finds you in the end.

"Only if you're looking can it find you/'Cause true love is searching too". I think that this talking about how we often overlook Love. It can be easy to focus on the negative. A lot of the time there's so much Love around us and we don't even notice. We've got to look for that; step out into the light.

My mouth needs a zipper

I was lost in thought the other night and it startled me when my son rapped on my door and swung it open suddenly. My instant reaction to fear is anger, and so the first thing I snapped was, "Don't do that! You scared me." Carman said he just wanted to tell me that he was sorry that he hadn't spent any time with me that night. He had friends over, and they'd all been hanging out together. Still feeling churlish about him startling me I picked up on the first negative thing I saw and said, "I thought you were going to shave," which of course had no bearing at all on the conversation.

I've been thinking about my knee-jerk reaction to things, and how I sometimes respond in such negative ways. I mean, how many 17-year-old boys would even think about telling their mother they're sorry they haven't spent time with her? Next time I feel that instant urge to react negatively, I'm going to try and just sit with it a minute and see if I can let it simply wash through me, see if I can be conscious of Love inside me instead. I think the most loving thing I can do sometimes is to give my emotions pause, bite my lip and keep my mouth closed for a moment. There's wisdom in the old adage to count to 10 when you're feeling angry. I don't have to let my feelings boil over and control me; I can pause and call Love to the surface. Goodness, how I struggle with my humanness sometimes.

TLIO Interview with Jim (Part II of IV)

Turn Love Inside Out
Q & A with Jim (Part II of IV)

Jim, some people may think you are putting too much emphasis on love. What about people who say that the problem of sin and God’s holiness are just as important?

A lot changed for me once I began interpreting spiritual things through God’s Love. I went to seminary and had classes on “hermenutics,” which is about identifying a methodology for interpreting spiritual writings like the Bible. Now I see that “Love” is the best “hermeneutic.” In other words, see all things as an expression of God as Love. As Love, God desires every person to experience all that he wants to freely give. When we “fall short” (sin) of experiencing this, God is grieved. God doesn’t look at humankind through eyes of disgust, but eyes of Love. God “hates sin,” because he seeks our best. God passionately resists anything less than this because he Love us. What is God’s best? It is himself! Knowing God and being one with God, as Jesus prayed we would experience, is the key to our fulfillment and freedom. This is what God desires for all humankind.

For me, Jesus Christ has been central for my working through this because I have learned from Christ there is no separation between myself and God. I realize there are ways I “fall short” of embracing and experiencing God’s best for me, and I am prone to make this fact a barrier between myself and God. The cross tells me all is forgiven, and the empty tomb tells me I am free to live in the present reality of God’s kingdom.

There are an infinite number of ways a person is drawn to the Truth. Experiencing God’s unconditional acceptance was huge for me. Turn Love Inside Out is not about pushing some new formula for changing the world or the latest bandwagon everyone should jump on in order to be spiritually hip. A few of us compared notes and discovered that Love has been instrumental in waking us up to what God makes available to us in every moment. The power of Love as I’ve experienced and witnessed its impact in other’s lives, is that it meets every person where they are, and has a way of dislodging a person from whatever is holding them back or hindering them.

Give me some examples of “being love.”

For me, it began as a radical shift in how I view people. The tendency is to see and interact with people based on our sensory perceptions – what they look like, the attitude or behavior they are expressing, and our human stereotypes and prejudices. The Bible says “I have the mind of Christ,” which means I am capable of discerning the spiritual identity of other human beings. Sure we might not Love at times, but our behavior and attitudes don’t create our identity; rather, our identity creates our behavior and attitudes. Whoever a man thinks he is, determines what he says and does. If God is Love and I am his creation, then I am Love. What does that mean? Doesn’t it least have to mean that we are capable of experiencing and expressing Love?

What if we started telling people they are Love, as images of God? How do we tell them? We Love them! We express Love, which stimulates their awareness of Love. I can’t make a person experience Love. I don’t need to; the capacity to know Love is already within them. What I can do, however, through the expression of Love is stimulate their awareness of Love’s presence inside them. So you ask, “Okay, how do you express Love?” Well, that’s sort of like asking how you breathe. Breathing is simply what we are physiologically wired up to do. Likewise, Loving is what we are spiritually wired up to do. In other words, when we Love we are most being like God. When we are living from our essential nature as creations of God, we Love.

Loving thoughts, spoken words, body language, physical touch, momentary interactions with others, acts of mercy and kindness, creating and sharing images of Love through song, art, photography and all creative forms, giving others attention, being fully present and listening to others, affirming the spiritual identity of others, are all expressions of Love. Any and every expression motivated by Love or in Love matters! No expression of Love is wasted.


(photo by Skyler J.)

TLIO Interview with Jim (Part I)

Turn Love Inside Out
Q & A with Jim

Jim, first, why Turn Love Inside Out?

As I was writing Wide Open Spaces I began noticing how every chapter seemed to wind up being about Love in one way or another. There’s been a few times in my life when Truth unveiled itself in such a clear and powerful way that it radically altered or awakened me deep inside. It was one of those experiences, and the Truth that presented itself to me is Love. Until then, I assumed I more or less knew what there was to know about Love. Oops! I see now I’m just scratching the surface in terms of accepting Love, giving Love, and being Love. It become pretty simple for me, is there anything more significant than unpacking the reality of Love? Turn Love Inside Out is simply an invitation to anyone and everyone who desires Love.

Okay, then the million-dollar question is: What is “love”?

You can't define it. Go ahead and try but then at the end of your definition you must footnote an acknowledgement that Love is deeper and wider than whatever you came up with. In that sense Love is like God. In fact, the Bible says, “God is Love.” Love is the Ultimate Reality. You can’t define God or Love but if you could, you would be bumping into the same thing. Though Jesus Christ has been central to my relationship with God for many years, only recently have I realized that Christ seeks to awaken me and make me aware of God’s Love within myself, and free me to express this Love to all people everywhere. For me, to “be like Christ” is to accept that God Loves me as he Loves Jesus Christ, and to be this Love in every moment as Jesus was. These days I am discovering great peace, joy, and freedom as I apprentice myself to Christ in the way of Love.

Jim, typically religious people seek to persuade others to their religion. For example, Christians seek to convert others to Christianity. It sounds like you however, want to convert people to love. Is that fair?

I capitalize the word ‘Love,’ because I view it as Ultimate Reality or God. Love is not some flighty, sentimental, self-focused human emotion. Love is the Creator and Source of all that is real. Humans were made in the image of Love, and so Love is the ground of our being, and our natural inheritance. When someone is awakened to Love, they are awakened to the most transformative reality there is. Its power heals, sets people free, makes whole, and puts one at deep peace and joy. Love is a spiritual reality within ourselves we can turn to in any moment. One way I experience it is a deep knowing that in every moment I am held in unconditional acceptance. When I allow myself to dwell there, all sense of separation from God is extinguished and I experience oneness with God. Free at last! Jesus prayed we would “experience” this oneness, and I am finding that Love is the doorway to it. I enjoy hiking, and often trails are marked by various color streaks on trees – red, blue, green, whatever. Likewise, the trail to God, in God, with God is marked by Love. As I convert the inner experience of Love into a life of being Love, I am one of those trees showing people the path to God, Ultimate Reality, and the only power on earth capable of transforming our inner being.

What would you say to people who feel they can’t or don’t experience Love? For example, a very beaten-down individual or a person who is a victim of hate and abuse?

Honestly, one reason my co-partner Anne and I began Turn Love Inside Out, is because we realized if we can know, experience, and be changed by Love, any human being can! We are both nobodies, and we’ve had plenty of life circumstances that have created resistance to Love inside us. Speaking for myself, I grew up in an abusive home and have a list of life failures a mile long. If there had been a “most likely to fail” honor in high school, I would have easily won it. OCD, Tourette’s, depression, self-hatred (to name a few) have been things I have had to contend with over the course of my life. Love is no respecter of persons. Whatever resistance to Love we have nurtured inside it is no match for the power of Love. Love does not need any particular set of circumstances in order to exist because it is an internal spiritual reality. Love is available in abundance to every person in every moment inside of them; this is our natural inheritance as people created in the image of God. All that’s left is to remove the blocks that hinder our awareness of Love’s presence. As mentioned previously, Christ has helped remove my blocks. We are to help each other. The best way to do this is to simply Love each other.

(Photo by Sly Fox A)

willing channels

To love God is to be an available, willing channel through which His unconditional love can flow through and touch others. To love God is to love each other. To love each other is to love God.

Gary Vacca

(photo by Windy Angels)

The Agony & the Ecstasy: It Hurts So Good

Someone very close to me, “Him” (clever “code name” my nieces gave him years ago), has been experiencing severe pain. Drugs have not worked, and Him also has a movement disorder which has its own problems and exacerbates this type of pain. So, as one of our many attempts to make things better, we saw a Physical Therapist today.

When she began her exam, I was struck by the way she was working. She was totally In the Now. She was completely focused on Him. It looked as if she was tuning a rare musical instrument. Her fingers played lightly over him. Her face tilted upward, eyes searching the “sky”, ears listening for what her touches would tell her. Total awareness.

More beauty…Him surrendered and let her take care of him. He is not out of the woods, but he listened to her and accepted her suggestions and we have some hope.

If you have ever had this sort of pain, or lived with someone who does, you know you accept any port in the storm. However, this was not just an experienced PT doing her job, helping out someone in pain, This was pure Love in action – attentive, present, unconditional.

I truly believe it was not her skill, but her complete presence, and her total unconditional attentiveness that allowed Him to relax. It took my breath away to watch her work. I was in Love with her and with Him. It was a golden moment. Love heals. She was the giver of Love, Him was the receiver, and I was a blessed observer - all enfolded and connected in the moment.

Ooo If I could work / be that way! …in the moment, fully attentive to what is right before me!