Teach (and live) only love

From my birthday two years ago, in honor of those trying desperately to navigate what feels like the "whitewater madness" of loving relationship:

"What, then, is love? Because it must be experienced in order to be meaningful, I can't define it for you except to say that it is the total absence of fear in the recognition of complete union with all of life. We truly love another when we see that our interests are not different or separate from theirs. This is always a union of higher minds and hearts based on loving intentions and never a forced or coincidental alliance of egos based on physical attraction or emotional neediness.

It isn't possible to evaluate or prove the existence of love in the usual ways. However, the fact that we are not able to 'measure' it does not make it less real. We have all had glimpses of pure, unconditional love, and there is unquestionably a part of us that knows it exists. We become aware of love whenever we choose to accept people without judging them and commence the gentle, peaceful effort of giving without any thought of getting something we think we need in return. This means, for example, that true love is not giving in order to change another's attitude from one of cold harshness to one of gentle lightheartedness or from ingratitude to one of total thanks to us. True love is a completely pure and unencumbered form of giving. It is extended freely to the love in others and is its own reward.

The word 'love,' as we generally and very loosely use it in our society, means something quite different from 'real love' as I am describing it here. The more common thing we experience is very 'conditional' love -- in other words, giving in order to get something back. It is a bargain - a trade agreement or carefully (and very suspiciously) negotiated arrangement. This is often fairly obvious in romantic relationships in which each partner is giving with the expectation that it will be returned in the very specific form that is desired. Conditional love is also what passes for kindness in most parent/child relationships. Here, the extension of love is contingent upon approved behavior and attitudes. Parents frequently seek an affirmation of their own worth through the accomplishments and behaviors of their child and through 'payments' of their full compliance and visible respect. Children often love their parents only when they get what they think they want, whether this be a new possession or approval and praise. Such love is neither dependable nor permanent, and its temporary nature causes us to carry the underlying fear that we are about to be abandoned into our adult lives.

When we are giving true love, our concern is not with our own or anyone else's 'behaviors' or even reciprocity. We feel natural and unrestricted because we recognize that love is our naturally flowing state. We are not aware of any lack or limitations. We don't question the possibility of devotion, and we are not preoccupied with time. We are only conscious of now and all of the opportunity and richness that it contains. When we are extending love, we are free and at peace.

We all say that we want to have less conflict, fear, stress, and depression in our lives. And deep within our hearts we do really want this to be so. But on the level from which we function most of the time, we rarely can choose peace over conflict and happiness over fear because of the sacrifices we believe these choices must entail. We also believe that there is satisfaction in revenge, that we can be right (and good, and happy) by proving someone else wrong (and bad), that to humble someone who is being difficult will give us 'a little peace and quiet' (and maybe even a little sweet retribution). We've truly lost our minds (and become totally out of touch with our hearts) when it seems logical to us to be stern with our children in order to teach them gentleness, when we think that there are people who deserve to lose because of their bad behavior and that the pain they receive is just and appropriate, when we try to increase love with one person by callously excluding another or others, when we mistake guilt and obligation for attraction, when we believe that pain can be pleasurable and that taking is getting. Then we are stunned and puzzled and very frustrated as to why this approach to life does not bring us good health and peace, and yet we see no reason to change our basic beliefs.

It is obvious that we need an experience which will bring clarity to our minds. The experience we all need more of is real love. In order to move more deeply into an atmosphere of genuine love, we must identify less with the 'body' and more with our love-related 'emotions' and 'spirit.' These are the set of feelings and awareness that speak to us of what has always been within us, but what our shabby ego/intellectual self-image has not allowed us to fully see. To recognize it we have to bring it forth boldly, for only by boldly extending what is good in us can we know and believe in the good within us, and that we ourselves are truly good. However, to 'bring it out' does not always mean to 'act it out,' but rather to bring it actively into our hearts and minds as belief and then to choose actions and attitudes consistent with it.

A preoccupation with the body and its pre-wired attitudes, behaviors, feelings, needy thoughts, and obsession with their short-term gratification does not allow real love to flood our mood, because the body is merely what is different and separate, needing something that is often 'at the expense of' another. In order to love, we must recognize what is the same within us, that which reunites us with a flood of shared emotion."

-- Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., in Teach Only Love

And further moving out of our individual, needy, physically separate bodies into the community-based, richly fulfilled, spiritually united "One Body" that we truly belong to:

"In our faithful, devoted, and committed lives together, we are both 'equal to' and 'One with' each other, and all there is to do is to 'celebrate' and 'suffer with' (i.e.; love) one another."

-- Brother Leroy, visiting preacher at church last Sunday

So many of us, when simply "being" ourselves, enter into relationship with another in such an unobstructed high - aware of how cool, fun, playful, tender, and wonderful we are, as well as how cool, fun, playful, tender, and wonderful certain others are, and that awareness naturally attracts itself, and the journey begins. And then we have some great fun, and we are attractive, thoughtful, and winsome without much effort involved, and everything is beautiful about everything.

And then one day a single thought of our inevitable separateness sets in, and old buttons are hit, old fears are triggered, old pain is remembered, and then something happens, and the high life is gone. Instead, need takes its place, the need to control, to feel a certain thing from the other, to manipulate them to receive evidence of that thing, the need to possess that thing we think is in them (and that they are now withholding) solely for ourselves, and we slowly start to strangle that other person we claim to love to death out of our desperate neediness, and we wonder where they went, and where we went, and where love went.

Well, the cold, hard truth was that that was not love at all, at least not the real thing. That was the imposter of romantic obsession and conditional love, just a brief glimpse or hint of the real thing, but not it, for the real thing has no roots in conditions, effort, flirtation, neediness, obligation, persuasiveness, physical attraction or obsession or pornographic imagery, only in real things - naturally flowing abundance, acceptance, benevolence, celebration, connection, hopefulness, joy, true life, the real peace that passes all understanding, and a God-given sense of purpose that is way bigger than ourselves, as well as the genuine, unmasked human pain that binds us all.

If your love or your most important relationship seems to have gone from general feelings of this:

to more and more frequent feelings of this:

it might be time to re-evaluate what you are really involved in, and to ask yourself the very important questions:

1) What am I needing and not getting, and how is that persistent neediness affecting my partner?

2) What am I committed to giving, and is love really the game I'm playing?

And if it is, then know that the only Source of real love (and satisfaction of your real need) is not the physical attraction or chemistry between you two "silly savages," or the other person's wonderfulness that you are striving so hard to unleash and win for yourself (and yourself alone), or even your amazing generosity, kindness, and obvious (to you, at least) worthiness, but Him and His totally mystifying, overflowing, overwhelming, and Perfect Love for you as His precious child.

If you think you're helping or loving, think again.

"Every great life is always, and miraculously so, being helped by everybody;

for his or her greatest gift is to extract good out of all things and all persons."

-- John Ruskin

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, and you can stop.
But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine,
then let us work together to let God do His thing for both of us."

-- Lila Watson

"We can help others in the world more by making the best choices and the most of ourselves than in any other way."

-- Earl Nightingale

"You help people become more motivated by guiding them to the source of their own power, not by showing off your own power."

-- Paul G. Thomas

"You don't truly help a man by doing it for him, or giving it to him, or teaching him anything; you can only truly help him if you encourage him to find it within himself."

-- Galileo Galilei

"God's love doesn't seek value; it creates it. It's not because we have value that we are loved, but because we're loved that we have value. So you don't have to prove yourself -- ever. That's already taken been care of. Simply let your love flow, remembering that help or love that doesn't flow naturally out of knowing how magnificently you are being helped and loved is not help or love at all, but a vain effort to earn it or get it right so you can feel better about yourself. That is not for you to do. How could you possibly feel any better than by simply knowing that your Perfect Father adores His child?"

-- William Sloane Coffin

There are so many people out there trying so desperately to get this "helping thing" or this "loving thing" right. But it's all tied up in performance anxiety and competition, starting within ourselves. In reality, it is not that hard; it is absolutely impossible, ... and therefore easy, once you let go of trying so hard, which is very hard to do when you've been doing it for so long. We can't get this right, folks. We were not made to get it right. We were made to come to know our human selves and limitations (the self we made) sufficiently to ask for help and His loving guidance and then to receive the help and guidance and love with great appreciation and gladness, letting it flow into (to the overflowing) and through us, where our relationships with others basks in that overflow. When we allow it (from who He made) and receive the free gift, we are free to give and receive with reckless abandon, which is pure bliss.

This painting is entitled "Flowing Connections."

On not wasting your breath

"Whoever keeps an open ear

For tattlers will be sure to hear

A trumpet of contention, most severe."

-- William Cowper

"Debating is an exercise of the mind;
true dialogue, an exercise of the heart;
gossiping, a mere flapping of the tongue."

-- Unknown

"There is so much good in the worst of us,

And so much bad in the best of us,

That it hardly becomes any of us

To talk about the rest of us."

-- Edward Wallis Hoch

"There is a lust in man no charm can tame,

Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame,

On eagles wings immortal scandals fly,

While virtuous actions are born and die."

-- William Harvey

"You will keep your friends

(and love will grow and advance)

if you forgive them and move on,

but you will lose your friends

(and love will shrink back)

if you keep talking about

what they did wrong."

-- Proverbs 17:9 (Contemporary English Version)

"In our appetite for gossip, we tend to gobble down everything before us, only to find, and too late, that it is our ideals we have actually consumed, and we have not been enlarged by the feasts but only diminished and poisoned."

-- Pico Iyer

"When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces of those surrounding him; and you are torn up by the thought of the unhappiness and night you might cast, by the mere fact of your unconscious living, in the hearts you encounter."

-- Albert Camus

When I stop to consider that my gossip reveals much more about me than it does about the person(s) I might be gossiping about, and that my resentment of another or others is a mere projection of my own inner darkness, I usually find that I have much less to say (apologies, notwithstanding), which is strange, and that others find me much less entertaining and interesting, which is even stranger, because we are so sickly drawn to watching each other self-destruct.

What if today we chose to secretly spread unsolicited compliments and good words about one another, to whisper little secrets about each other's beauty and courage and intelligence and magnificence and sweetness to other friends, to go out of our way to spread fertilizer (and no, let your imagination stop here, please) vs. poison?

I wonder what would happen across our community if this really took hold? Could we even stand to do it? Could we spread apologies and appreciation vs. hatefulness and resentment? Could we stand to be with the result of that? What kind of new connections, creativity, peacefulness, productivity could be formed in this cleansed and fertile soil?

Difficult stand to hold

"I think the main job of the inspiring writer, the dedicated spiritual guide, the servant leader, or the artist of any kind is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."

-- Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

Well, as a writer, leader, and guide of sorts (I'm not much of an artist), I can honestly say that I resemble these remarks. I can really relate to the role - both in the "comforting" state and in the "disturbing" state - and the really interesting thing about them is that neither are generally accepted or appreciated by another at first.

The "comforting" I humbly offer is rarely truly accepted and fully received in the moment by the person who is desperately lost in their disturbance and their paralyzing suffering. It is a light that is barely visible, at least to their physical eyes in their heads. It can even be annoying at times as it points to a bigger possibility than their current state. Hope can sometimes be a real pain in the ass, especially when misery is being unconsciously "chosen."

And the "disturbing" I humbly offer is rarely truly accepted and fully received in the moment by the person who is desperately hiding in their clever (and sometimes not so clever) disguises. It is a stripping away that is barely tolerable, at least to their ego self-image. It most definitely is annoying as it points to a bolder, much simpler truth than their current hiding state could handle. Truth is usually the biggest pain in the ass, especially when lies are being consciously "chosen."

So, in other words, I don't get the experience of feeling very accepted very often by human beings, and often feel like an annoying, irritating stress "producer" (when, in reality, I am simply a stress "revealer"). It is usually not until a significant time afterwards, when the role of comforter or disturber is no longer "needed" (due to a person's fully surrendered authenticity - their awakening to or remembering who they are) that I get seen and appreciated for who I am as a human being (Thank God and "Thank You, God!" that I know who and Whose I am, and that I don't need human affirmation for my survival and well-being). This can be a very lonely and long road at times. Now is one of those times. But it is the road I'm on, and I have a brilliant guide and shepherd, and he walks with me, holding me as I cry out when it's just too much.

Someone once told me (and thanked me profusely for it) that I am like a brick wall that he throws himself against (whether consciously or unconsciously) to see what remains of him after the collision, knowing that what "isn't him" will get knocked off and discarded, and he will be left with a clearer understanding and view of who he really is, and the wall will remain solid and intact, loving him all the while. Well, I love that comment and the imagery it conjures up (see below), fully accepting that role for others, given that I ran into my own brick walls on numerous occasions over my lifetime, and I so desperately needed them at the time, and it sure took a long time for God to pick up what was left and re-build and stabilize me into that brick wall for others (even though it feels a little wobbly today). And He did this for me, developing and placing me in this role, to help me always remember who He is for me, and I am forever grateful.

This is how I feel today - a little sullied up and trashed, and with a few bricks missing.

"freeing ourselves from the
darkness and rigidity of habit"

A Baker's Dozen on Addiction:

"We move in our recovery from one addiction to another for two major reasons: first, we have not recognized and treated the underlying addictive motive within our deepest humanity, and second, we have not accurately isolated and focused upon the specific addictions with which we are wrestling with our full energy, focus, and commitment."

-- Anne Wilson Schaef, Ph.D.

"I admire admitted addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster, or some sudden disease to kill them, the addict has the 'comfort' of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of death from being a total surprise."

-- Chuck Palahniuk

"Nicotine withdrawal was very much like trying to s*** a melon. The pressure was remarkable! Seemingly an impossible task. I would break out into sweats, cough, curse, yell, and wake up periodically throughout the night from vicious nightmares. Three full weeks of endless torment without relief. The incommodiousness of it all!

-- Greg Evans

"If you do anything regularly enough to escape your one healthy habit of truly living, the escape becomes the next bad habit that is living you."

-- David Ryan

"Habit is habit, and not likely to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one agonizing step at a time."

-- Mark Twain

"Self-respect is the root of self-discipline: a sense of dignity grows with the ability to say a meaningful no to oneself."

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

"We love our habits more than our income, more than our relationships, often even more than our life."

-- Bertrand Russell

"Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the light, even though for the moment you do not see."

-- Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous

"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town."

-- George Carlin

"What comes out of you when you are squeezed expresses your life's choices."

-- Dr. Wayne Dyer

"When you can stop, you don't want to. When you want to stop, you can't."

-- Casper, played by Geoffrey Rush, in the movie, "Candy"

"Blessed are the obviously, visibly cracked, for they shall let the light in.”

-- Unknown

“Men's natures are all alike; it is their habits that set them apart.”

-- Confucius

Yes, we sure are creatures of habit, all alike in that we are all addicted to something or other. If we're honest and admit it, walking in transparent truth, we let in some light for ourselves and others to be able to see (if they are willing). If we deny it, fight it, hide it, or further medicate it, we hang out in and spread the darkness, while judging and condemning the light-bearers. The only hope for ourselves is in our total self-awareness, self-crucifixion, self-examination, self-extrication, self-responsibility, which is the only path to getting that old "self" out of the way so that God can completely restore us to the sanctity, sanity, and serenity that is our true self - the "self" who He made. We are all a beautiful mess - each and every one of us - none more than another. Seeing this is the first step to freedom and true life in the light. Equal and One, sharing both celebrations and suffering, this is true life and where we are all headed.

"I want to live. I want to give.
I've been a miner for a heart of gold."

-- Neil Young

On being fully human

"We know perfectly well how to be religious, even spiritual. It's being fully human that we have the most trouble with."

-- Renee Bledsoe

"What happens to a man through circumstances is less significant than what happens within him through choice."

-- Louis L. Mann

"At the end of ourselves, on our knees before God, equal to and one with one another, we find our holiness."

-- Yours Truly

"If you don't know how to tell the truth about yourself, you won't know how to tell it about other people."

-- Virginia Woolf

"The most important of life's battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of our own hearts."

-- David O. McKay

"More people would really learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them."

-- Harold J. Smith

"When a man finds no peace within himself, it is useless to seek it elsewhere."

-- L. A. Rouchefolicauld

"Arrogance exposes our ignorance of and resistance to our true selves."

-- Yours Truly

"You become what you most consistently behold and believe."

-- William Blake

"In our naked humanity, we know and need no hierarchy."

-- Yours Truly

We often hide behind our intellectual knowledge and limited human understanding of things, even those things we think we know about God (vs. genuinely knowing God), in the form of our religious practice, study, and thinking, and it actually works to keep us blocked from Him by our "self-made selves" - that mental fabrication, self-image, "suit of armor" that keeps me nestled in the illusion of safety, within which I often stay cool, calm, and collected - just totally disconnected.

We meet Him (and our "God-made self") at the very ends of our "self-made self," so, interestingly enough, the only real access to Him (vs. access to the so often conflicting information about Him), is through ourselves, through to the very edges of our darkest, murkiest humanness (because the only way "to" is "through"), where we are looking totally honestly into the mirror, and willing to fall into and through it into the Great Void where He waits, and smiles, with open arms.

When I live in (or even frequently visit) that place - that vast White Space that is devoid of all surface-level chaos, clutter, competition, deceit, greed, lust, misery, noise, rage, whining - where it is only me and Him, I am truly Home, and most thoroughly, genuinely, and authentically myself. But the human experience requires that I boldly examine, excavate, experience, explore, "get dirty" to "get there." It is a grand digging adventure, and there are no golden parachutes off the cliff and into the hole that leads to the gold (or the Great Void, or the White Space) - to that still place where He waits.

And as the photo above so viscerally and visually depicts the process of "deep mining into the earth," would you like to take an amazing musical journey down memory lane with me, in the realm of "deep mining into the self," with someone who has always seemed very human and real to me, and who definitely seemed to be really searching back then (and might still be searching today, for all I know), searching for that precious and rare "heart of gold."

Here is Neil Young, back when he was really young (somewhere in his twenties), playing before a small, intimate audience that surely had no idea they were about to receive their first listening to a song that would become an instant classic, and it remains so today, actually sounding better to me today than it did back in 1971, when it was first written, back when I was a skinny,17-year-old, pimply-faced street kid posing as a high school football star and B.M.O.C. at Lincoln High School in Phila., PA, searching for my manhood, and for some meaning in my crazed and crazy life, ... and the journey continues, and I remain a dedicated miner of hearts to this day, having dug to the very depths of my own to find Him.

Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh44QPT1mPE

"When God thinks of you, He smiles."
-- Ellie Claire

Shared Glory

"The greatest glory of God is a single human being who has come fully alive, and the greatest glory of a human being is a single, fragile, yet powerful glimpse of really seeing what God sees."
-- Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyons (130-200 c.e.)

"The splendid discontent of God With chaos made the world.
And from the discontent of man The world's best progress springs."

-- Ella Wilcox Wheeler

"A moment's deep insight is sometimes worth a lifetime's experience."
(My Dad, in his dying days, revealed this to be so.)
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"So you'll go out in joy, you'll be led into a whole and complete life."

-- Isaiah 55:12 (The Message)