#3: To exult in love

I purchased my first desktop computer sometime circa 1990.  It came in one of those boxes that was supposed to look like a cow. It was very big, and very exciting.  I wasn't very good at typing, but the opportunity to pour my thoughts into this machine which would then save them for future editing, printing, or sharing... well, it was all pretty heady at the time.

So heady, in fact, that the first thing I did on the computer was compose a sermon/essay which I modestly entitled, "The Last Sermon on Love."  Evidently I was getting tired of hearing various clergy preach at me about God's love, and how I was supposed to love my neighbor, and I thought I had it all figured out.  

It would appear, however, that I was not destined to offer the world the last word on love.  Inexperienced as I was with the computer, as soon as the "sermon" was done, the memory crashed, and the text was lost.  I had no idea which wrong button I had pressed which caused me to lose my work, or which right button might retrieve all those words of wisdom for me.  They were gone forever.

Twenty-five years later, though, I am still pondering the mystery of God's love, and how we embody that love.  And I am far less sure that I have the last word in that regard.  A quick glance would indicate that the community's words on love comprise the longest of our 15 Understandings, a sign that God's love resists being summed up in a few brief paragraphs. 

On the other hand, God's love, and our encounter with that incomprehensible reality, cannot be captured in any words, no matter how lofty or extensive.  The Understanding points to the combination of feeling and will, the "naked intent" of the heart to love God, neighbor, and even enemy.  Love is, indeed, a choice, a skill, and an opportunity.  It is becoming a place from which I begin to understand why each of us, all of us, are here.  

Love is beginning to fill the space of silence that I am carving out of the busyness of life, the reason why I have chosen a hermitage as the site of my spiritual growth.  The hermitage is not a door closed on the world for my private spiritual thrills.  It is the incubator in which God's love can be warmed, nurtured, and finally break through into the world through me as its shell.

Good thing that old "sermon" got lost so quickly!  The last word on love will always be God's, not mine, and I suspect that word will be, "Yes."