April 14--Pretty Simple But Not So Easy

Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: our Love to others and others' Love to us.  --Thomas Traherne

    I believe that we cannot truly love others without loving the Source from which we came. Jesus offered us two jobs: 1) to love God (Source/Spirit/Ralph--call It what you will) with all that we are, and 2) to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

    Here are helpful and challenging words from Richard Rohr (Center for Action and Contemplation):

So how do we love God? Most of us seem to have concluded we love God by attending church services. For some reason, we think that makes God happy. I’m not sure why. Jesus never talked about attending services, although church can be a good container to start with. I believe our inability to recognize and love God in what is right in front of us has allowed us to separate religion from our actual lives. There is Sunday morning, and then there is real life.

The only way I know how to teach anyone to love God, and how I myself seek to love God, is to love what God loves, which is everything and everyone, including you and including me!

    The more we love others, ALL others, and ourselves, the more we enjoy our world. 

        Leta