TO LOVE IN A LOVELESS PLACE

See yourselves as those around you see you, not as you wish to be, and walk very humbly with your God. 

That sentence from today's "God Calling" (which every year I underline in a different color) may be my life's goal. It for sure has been my mountain to climb. My first thought is never of those around me being those who love me and think I'm simply swell...no, it's always of those I resist "because they think I'm X, Y or Z." And X, Y or Z means wrong. And stupid into the bargain.

Eknath Easwaran writes of his spiritual adviser, his Granny, who taught him to get closer to those he didn't particularly care for because that is the way to learn how to love...openly, willingly, joyfully. And don't we all long for that? For that feeling in our heart, soul, body and brains?

But yuck! What a hard road to walk to get there! Says my ego Lucy. For Lucy is the only part of me that really balks at the idea of moving closer to my "resistibles." Invariably, per Lucy, they are the ones resisting me, I'm just following their signals. Turning away from Lucy toward God is the drill for learning to align our will with God's will. It ain't easy.

Looking to simplify, I choose to believe that one sentence from "God Calling" is the entire instruction book on learning to love in a loveless place which, according to me, is the real solution to life's petty problems.

Thank you.