SING IN THE SUNSHINE, DANCE IN THE RAIN!

This is what you are to do. Lift your heart up to the Lord with a gentle stirring of love, desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts. --The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 3

Again, again, and yet again, no matter the question, the answer is, "We go to God for God and that is all."

My greatest teacher  was my first dog, Ari, a seven-pound Maltese. This was in the late '70s, and I loved...I still love...that little guy with every drop of blood in me. And he loved me equally. He loved everybody just as much, actually. You could not not love Ari. Much like Ruckus in truth.

My first deep learning with Ari was the time he peed on the living room carpet...just after I had taken him out for his morning constitutional.

Almost the instant I saw that, I was furious, livid, heading toward hysteria, shouting...literally shouting at him..."You know better than that; you are bad, bad, bad." The unconscious thought immediately preceding my fury was (1) he did that on purpose with malice aforethought and (2) I'm not a fool and I'll not be played for one.

It took me a year or more to realize that unconscious first thought and that led to my half-way believing  that there in one form or another is the two-step foundation for all personal disagreements.

The immediate gift in that was Ari just went on loving me...didn't change an iota, just wanted to be in my presence, preferably my lap. The resulting gift there, of course, was that for a short time I punished him by ignoring him (the worst punishment, I believe) but I couldn't resist for long either his love for me or my love for him. I did, however, learn from it. I knew Ari could do nothing but love, but the fact that my love for him was not lessened was my wonderment.

One day...blinding flash of the obvious...I realized that I am...we all are...God's Ari. We pee on the carpet, God loves us. Doesn't beat us up or natter us about it. Doesn't shun us. Just loves us.

God's gift to us is our conscience. We can only pee on the carpet once and get nothing but love in return, without feeling fairly bad about our self when (when!) we do it again. It is our own feelings about our behavior that makes us change...not God's punishment on us for being our self-described "bad, bad, bad."

God loves us right out of the chute unconditionally and forever. It is his great gift to us to let us throw it back in his face until we get the picture. When we stop doing life our way (blaming and shaming our self and others) and start loving unconditionally, we will be the peace we seek...the love we want and already are.

We can stop seeking God's love...know it, show it...sing in the sunshine, dance in the rain! We're God's Ari and we're free to be!

Thank you.