Intention:  Enoughness…and Love (Part 3)

 

From Part 2:

We know this is an endless resource, she says, because we were taught to pray (by Jesus himself) “give us this day our daily bread.”  It is supplied daily.  And it is enough.  It is not an eighth of a gallon of gas for the trip to San Francisco.   And when the tank runs dry, I can go refill it.

How do I access it?  But to ask “how” is to stop the process.  How do you access it?  You just do.  You believe it, you know it, and you do.

I’m trying to get it.

(“Do or do not; there is no try.” —Yoda)

(“tried = tired”  —my counselor)

Reframe:  I almost get it.

Here’s to living in the land of love.

 

**Part 3**

The monks at the abbey during the Holy Week retreat I attended spoke incessantly of God as the prime Lover.  Fr. Francis told me, “That kind of God”—the judgmental God of wrath that I’ve always known—“leaves you in the gutter bleeding.  God wants us as lovers.”

And Fr. Phillip preached of Jesus:

            “Where I’m going, you can’t follow.

            You will, but you have to wait.

            Do it my way.

            I am the way.”

My takeaway:  The way is Jesus.  Jesus is the manifestation of love.  Therefore, the way is love.

———

I still keep getting hung up on the “how.”

My counselor—I’m calling her Doc Yoda now—questions me, waiting for me to fill in the blank:  “I don’t offer myself this continued fullness of love because _______.”

“Because I still see all the flaws.  Because I still get stuck at the ‘how.’”

She continues:  “I like withholding from myself…I like saying ‘as soon as you fix those flaws’…I like dangling this carrot because _______.”

A pause.

“Because that motivates me to conquer a flaw, and then I feel like I’ve made progress.”

“So, I starve this child—offer her a small plate of rice and beans if she conquers a flaw, and she’s so hungry….  She barely does it; I barely reward her; we start again….”

It’s the gas tank analogy again.  I’ll give you an 1/8^th of a gallon of gas.  Now achieve!

She continues:  “‘Conquering’ my flaw is more important than giving myself unconditional love…This hoop for you to jump through is more important than you, because _______.”

“Because we’re supposed to strive for godly perfection.”

“I know,” she says, “with love as your fuel.  God him/herself is the only way to get there, on the substance of love.”

———

Love transforms.  Love is capable of alchemical transformation.

Alchemy.  The changing of one element into another.  Lead into gold.  Water into wine.  Jesus showed us how to do that, how to turn water into wine.  (We know how to do it?!)  Love is what changes it.

Wine has water in it.  The transformation is an improvement, not a replacement.  Love is what creates the transformation.

    

———

“I am the way” = “you can find truth”

My takeaway:  Jesus is the way.  Jesus is love.  Love is the way.  Love is the way to find truth.

———

As to the how…when I have my power, I’ll know how.  It will be an inspired action.

———

May we strive for perfection but with love as our fuel.  May we reclaim our power and find the inspired know-how that we already have.