April 30--Just Do It

We can only learn to love by loving.  --Iris Murdoch

    A simple statement closes the April theme of love. Get active with your love today. Smile at yourself in the mirror. Be kind to a stranger. Do something sweet for someone you love. Plant some flowers. Laugh. Move your magnificent body. Give thanks. 

        Leta

Our beautiful Kansas Flint Hills

April 29--It's All Sacred

He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.  --Leo Tolstoy

    I'm going with the romance of God (Spirit, Universe, etc--use your name for It) for its creation, that it is impossible to tell where God ends and creation starts. This gives me the opportunity to share these words of Rachel Held Evans considering what is sacred:

Indeed, the word sacrament is derived from a Latin phrase which means “to make holy.” When hit with the glint of love’s light, even ordinary things become holy. And when received with open hands in the spirit of eucharisteo, the signs and wonders of Jesus never cease. The 150-plus gallons of wine at Cana point to a generous God, a God who never runs out of holy things. This is the God who, much to the chagrin of Jonah, saved the rebellious city of Nineveh, the God who turned five loaves of bread and a couple of fish into a lunch to feed five thousand with baskets of leftovers to spare. This God is like a vineyard manager who pays a full day’s wage for just one hour of work, or like a shepherd who leaves his flock in search of a single lamb, or like a father who welcomes his prodigal son home with a robe, a ring, and a feast.

We have the choice, every day, to join in the revelry, to imbibe the sweet wine of undeserved grace, or to pout like Jonah, argue fairness like the vineyard employees, resent our own family like the prodigal’s older brother. At its best, the church administers the sacraments by feeding, healing, forgiving, comforting, and welcoming home the people God loves. At its worst, the church withholds the sacraments in an attempt to lock God in a theology, a list of rules, a doctrinal statement, a building.

But our God is in the business of transforming ordinary things into holy things, scraps of food into feasts and empty purification vessels into fountains of fine wine. This God knows his way around the world, so there’s no need to fear. . . . There’s always enough—just taste and see. There’s always and ever enough.

    That is true love,

        Leta

April 28--What Do You Really Love?

The things that we love tell us what we are.  --St. Thomas Aquinas

    "You are what you eat."

    "She who dies with the most fabric wins."

    "I just need a little fix."

    "If only I can get one more refill of this prescription." 

    "Coffee is the reason I get up in the morning."

    We have TV shows about hoarders. I am horrified at the proliferation of storage facilities in our country--building offsite places to store our stuff. As I walk Barney around our neighborhood, I see many garages which are home, not to vehicles, but to piles and piles of stuff. Consuming certainly is one of our misdirected gods. 

   I'm reading an excellent book titled "Addiction and Grace" by Gerald May. His premise is that everyone is addicted to something, at the very least "stinking thinking." The objects of our addictions (food, alcohol, sex, shopping, stuff, on and on) are our idols, what we worship. Lasting recovery requires us to recognize who/what we truly are--infinite spiritual beings created from and by Source. Following the line of the Aquinas quote, we have to love that power greater than us in order to bring out our best and stop the addictive cycle. 

    Less stuff means more joy,

        Leta

April 27--Infinite Capacity

Where there is great love there are always miracles.  --Willa Cather

    On my long drives to and from Colorado, I catch up on Rob Bell podcasts. (The Robcast) Bell is a former minister turned author and world-wide speaker. He has a way of making sense out of so much in our world that does not make any sense to me, like Russia invading Ukraine and Trump and his followers. Bell is a man of great love. He travels the world over to deliver a message of love. 

    In one of the podcasts, Bell talked about a friend who is going through an extra-tough struggle with cancer. Instead of the trite phrase "I am praying for you," he uses "I am holding you in my heart." I love this! I have more faith in my heart than anywhere else in the universe. Because the capacity of our hearts to love is infinite, our hearts can hold as much as we care to put there. I think of all the folks I carry in my heart regularly, and I'm happy to have those simple but awesomely powerful words to wrap around my practice. 

    With an expansive heart, 

        Leta

April 26--Full-Bodied Love

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.  --Toni Morrison

    I'm going to let that one inspire as you choose. 😍

    I will, however, offer up some random thoughts. Barney is very intent on checking out potential threats outside our west-facing window. We call it his "station." He's protecting us--there's no thin love there.

    Walking the dogs in lovely, windy Colorado on Saturday, I picked up this interesting twig:

Nature is our perfect example of "no thin love." Nature loves us to excess in beauty, bounty and mystery. 

    Loving our Earth home and critters,

        Leta

April 25--Gratitude--Express It!

Gratitude is a shortcut which speedily leads to love.  --Theophile Gautier

    Isn't it nice to be appreciated? Don't you feel good vibes toward someone who thanks you for your being and doing? My husband cooks all our meals with loving care--he is devoted to the art and craft of cooking, and I can't imagine not thanking him for his efforts. 

    As reported earlier, I've done full-time temporary tax work for the same person for seven years. Never once in all that time have I heard a "thank you," "good job," or anything similar. Yes, I've been paid well, but I have certainly learned to work well without any show of gratitude. I do my best because that's my nature. It's a good thing I didn't need the boss' appreciation to motivate me. Being Miss-Manners-trained, I said "thank you" multiple times a day to my boss, because I couldn't do the job without his help. Pay and instruction (i.e., correction) were his expressions of gratitude. 

    Not receiving enough gratitude in your life? Give it out! What goes around comes around.

        Leta

April 24--Infinite Capacity

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. 
--Zelda Fitzgerald

    I am visiting my older son and his pregnant wife. We are all so excited to meet this new little life coming to our family. As first-time parents, they have no idea what they are in for. Life changes forever and infinitely in a moment, and I don't think anything can prepare a person for the heart-filling-to-overflowing love that explodes at the birth of a child. 

    I believe that Source is infinite love, and we are created of that. Therefore, there is no limit to how much love our hearts can hold. What enables a person to care for years for a spouse with Alzheimer's? What enables one to sit with a friend or relative dying of cancer? What inspires a person to rescue an abused animal? Where do art and music come from? It's all infinite love. 

    Love IS the only power in the Universe,

        Leta

"Bouquet of Sunflowers" by Claude Monet