To love another person is to see the face of God
- Victor Hugo
Softly, an effervescent light dawns, awakening love's sleeping presence. Then, sparkling in the eyes of the beloved, this new love lures the couple's submission, as Cupid's arrow pierces all their defensive layers, to its den of light. This powerful, intoxicating love is only a teaspoon from the ocean of God's great universal love. It is a taste of divine love. As these two surrender to each other, open and trusting, love magically flows, transforming time and space, changing their lives forever.
Jesus said whenever two or more are gathered in His name, He is there. He is love as God is love and so our very human love is a touch of God's very presence within and among us.
Valentinus, c.100 AD, a great teacher and poet of the Gnostic tradition, understood perhaps more than others about the power of God's love to transform our mundane human experience in this illusionary experience of life. He taught that it is only through the heart that we enter into relationship with God and each other. In less sentimental language, he espoused through poetry the means to open the inner chambers of the heart and enter the gateway to heaven.
Jesus said whenever two or more are gathered in His name, He is there. He is love as God is love and so our very human love is a touch of God's very presence within and among us.
Valentinus, c.100 AD, a great teacher and poet of the Gnostic tradition, understood perhaps more than others about the power of God's love to transform our mundane human experience in this illusionary experience of life. He taught that it is only through the heart that we enter into relationship with God and each other. In less sentimental language, he espoused through poetry the means to open the inner chambers of the heart and enter the gateway to heaven.
As this is Valentine's Day, named for the Valentine who trumpeted romantic love, it is an awesome coincidence that this greatest of all should-have-been pope's mystical theology brings us face to face, heart to heart with each other in our pursuit of something more loving, more divine, in our escape from this transitory realm of pain and darkness. All love offers us that escape.
An interesting thing about romantic love is that it is not only the beloved's love that gives us love. It just feels like that. Rather, it is our own love we feel which the other invites or calls forth from us. The other also experiences his own love drawn from the divine well within him which he trades for our love. While it is an exchange, it is also the same substance drawn from our two wells that we share. For both, is one's own love, buried within, that is drawn out by the other whom we so dearly cherish. It is in sharing our love that we are able to experience it at all.
When our beloved is gone, sadly the light dims in our heart, and we are sorely tempted to close up shop. But, the love was not his love to give in the first place. It was always ours, called forth by his open invitation, his enamored need and plea to be graced by the love he saw dancing in our eyes as they met his. It was light from light, love from love, that drew us together into the most gorgeous dance of life.
It is no wonder that love, romantic love in particular, is a frequent visitor to people who also dearly love God. It is a dusting of the divine that so often brings us to our knees and often to the altar.
An interesting thing about romantic love is that it is not only the beloved's love that gives us love. It just feels like that. Rather, it is our own love we feel which the other invites or calls forth from us. The other also experiences his own love drawn from the divine well within him which he trades for our love. While it is an exchange, it is also the same substance drawn from our two wells that we share. For both, is one's own love, buried within, that is drawn out by the other whom we so dearly cherish. It is in sharing our love that we are able to experience it at all.
When our beloved is gone, sadly the light dims in our heart, and we are sorely tempted to close up shop. But, the love was not his love to give in the first place. It was always ours, called forth by his open invitation, his enamored need and plea to be graced by the love he saw dancing in our eyes as they met his. It was light from light, love from love, that drew us together into the most gorgeous dance of life.
It is no wonder that love, romantic love in particular, is a frequent visitor to people who also dearly love God. It is a dusting of the divine that so often brings us to our knees and often to the altar.
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