Love Affair

The dawning of a new age begins in an instant. In the sweetness of that first moment of recognition, awareness is born. 

As any love affair, there is a kind of emerging realization that the other has reached monumental importance in your life, gradually occupying more of your thoughts. You find yourself pondering the other, slipping into long, lingering moments of full immersion in the love that has taken you over. You feel safe, accepted, appreciated, valued, adored and cherished.

Our relationship with the divine presence is like that and just as real.  Yet, the divine relationship is often overlooked, like that quiet girl in your bio class who you fail to notice is looking at you or the geeky guy in your lit class who is probably the nicest or brightest guy in class. You just don't notice because you're busy worrying about other stuff.  Our divine lover is like that. He isn't loud and flashy, driving the fastest car or wearing designer jeans. He is subtle, waiting patiently at the door of your heart, but surprisingly His love is most potent and intoxicating.

Typically, we are so steeped in our external worlds of work, friends, goals, finance, real estate, the past, the future, whatever other activity or hobby that occupies a large amount of our time and waking consciousness, that we actually forget that all along there is a divine other, who is really loving us and waiting for us to turn around and welcome Him into our lives.

We may go to a place of worship, participate in the ritual, think for a little while about such a concept, slip into even a briefly awakened moment, decide to make some changes in our lives. Like New Year's Eve resolutions, we might take on some good habits, even be more concerned about others, participate in outreach or peace initiatives or feed the poor, even watch the neighbor's dog, but all those things are really no different than those other things you do on a regular basis.  They are all things you do.  They are not who you are.  

I believe our God is calling us into a love relationship. Yes, He is inviting us into a love that would transform us forever.  Despite the elegant invitation, we run around like busy bees, zooming here and there, trying to rise to the top of the hive, trying to make the most honey, as if that matters, avoiding Him.  

What if there were an earthquake or a flood or a blizzard or a hurricane, tornado, economic collapse?  If you spent your entire life building a bee hive and becoming top bee, if a storm came and toppled that hive, your lifetime would have been wasted.  What if you spent your entire life working to make money so you could buy your dream house and you finally bought it and a storm came and destroyed it?  You would look back and realize that all those years of hard work had been wasted.  

When I was in high school, my high school religion teacher was arrested for protesting the Viet Nam war.  That night I saw him on the news, with his long hair wisping in the late afternoon Buffalo winter wind, as he talked to a reporter. His views and values are with me still today.  I can remember our classes, eventhough he never returned that year.  I remember his passionate invitation to not join the system, not to sell our souls to anything outside us, anything other than God, whom in those days we still called "God, " without apology or fear of being politically - religiously - incorrect.  

I didn't sell out and while that choice never made me much money, we  managed.  We managed to feed, clothe and educate our children, usually found work that offered an opportunity to expand our skills and be part of something larger than ourselves, to effectively engage with others synergistically toward a meaningful and positive outcome.  I knew then, as I know now,  it wasn't the money that mattered, rather it was the relationships that are with me and will be with me forever that do matter very much.  

Our relationship with God is like that.  It is the relationship that most matters.  It is that invisible connection that gives you life, joy, freedom from guilt, freedom from anything that would tether you to a sense of inadequacy or unloveability.  

It is the joy of free abandon in the arms of the one you love and the only One is God, who waits for you every moment of your life, waiting for you to open the door to Him.  He whispers to you, "I love you. Come back to me." 

His love is a stream, a live wire, a communication of peace, forgiveness, welcome, acceptance. It may feel like a slow drum beat, at first. As you embrace it, accept it, it beats more constantly, rhythmically until something in you knows that this is unlike anything else in your life experience.  

Then, little things happen, little improbable serendipitous coindidental, unlikely, yet almost miraculous, wishes come true exactly as you wanted and then it dawns on you.  Startled, suddenly aware, surprised,  it occurs to you that you are not alone.  He is really there.  You wake in the morning with peace and joy running in your veins.  The sun is shining, you feel lighter, you want to listen to music that matches the rhythm in your heart. As you dig through all your CDs, few of them match the music in your head. The search is on for something in this world, that would rhyme with the poetry in your heart. Believe me, it is there, but it is not common.

You are in love, my friend.  That love, as in any relationship, invites you into a deeper relationship with yourself as well.  And, as your encounter yourself, His love permeates all of your being and His light radiates throughout your being.  You have become a temple, a place of worship, an altar, a homebase, for God.  Love is a presence who dwells within you.  You could linger happily in that awareness for awhile.  It might change your life, clean up your language and make you a nicer person, maybe. 

As you allow His love to embrace you, you will be changed into a totally different person.  Those things that used to seem important - the car, the house, the job, the boss, the employee - whatever - simply slip into second and third place in your life. You are caught up in the fragrance of love.  You realize that your very being has changed, most likely even on a molecular level.  Love and light have infused you.  

Your very being is home to the creator of all of life.  Nothing else has any power over you and all there is, is this great inner dance of life.  You will see things more clearly.  You will recognize other people's lostness as you never did before.  And, you would help them to come to the dance of a lifetime, if only they would.  

I said to a friend last night that I feel like I just want to check out of the system.  As I said it, I realized how true that was.  We all want to check out of the system.  We all want to get out of the madness, off the treadmill, call off the insanity.  We all want to do this.  

There comes a time when we realize the futility of our lives and want to step off.  It is not resignation, rather it is signing up for something far more real and far more alive and joyous and relevant than anything we'd ever done before.  You have found your love and He/She was in you and with you and very, very really there all along. You will never be alone ever again. 

This great love within you, begs to be shared, wants dearly to engage all of us.  Our God wants all of us to come back to Him, accept His love and join in the great celebration of a lifetime, of eternity.  All we have to do is stop for a moment, whisper out loud a wish and then go back to doing whatever we were doing, and when that wish is really granted, you will see and really believe He was there all along.  

Just give Him a chance.  Invite Him to the dance, as He invites you, and He will show up.  He said he would.  He promised from the beginning of time that He would.  And, he does, over and over and over again, and always will, even until the end of the age.

Behold, 

I stand at the door and knock; 

if anyone hears My voice 

and opens the door, 

I will come in to him 

and will dine with him, 

and he with Me.

Rev. 3:20