THE SECRET OF ALL RELATIONSHIPS

My Easwaran daily this morning spoke of relationships, how jealousy comes into a relationship when we try to possess someone for ourselves. "This is the secret of all relationships....Instead of trying to exact and demand, just give, give more, and give still more. This is the way to earn love and respect."

Note, he wrote "all"  relationships...within that, I'm thinking of our ever so tenuous relationship with God.

I'm guessing that is why so many of us cannot believe in a personal God, a loving God...God period. We have never not demanded from It. We have never thought to give to It...to ponder exactly how we could give to It.

We give to It in the exact same way we heard back in the day: Give to a friend, a spouse, a parent, a love with open hand, head, heart, seeking nothing in return but to give more. We heard that back when we were believing in Cinderella, Snow White, and that becoming homecoming queen would make us perfect and loved forever...back when it was easy to believe that we could and would love with open hand, head, heart, seeking nothing in return but to give more.

We believed that until we got run over by a Mack truck a few times (never accepting that we were the ones choosing to lay down in front of that truck). That's when we took matters unto our own self...and Armageddon bloomed.

And there's the pearl...our own personal Armageddon is our pearl beyond price. Without it, we'd still be looking for love in front of Mack trucks.

The trouble with loving with open hand, head, heart, seeking nothing in return but to give more is it is the truth, and it does not make sense to our reasoning mind. It is a hard, hard lesson learning that we  must go beyond reason to love...reason will block our every move.

We start with friends and family...and find it's actually easier to start with those we don't know at all. Then move up to those we're not too fond of. "With those we dislike we can begin to practice justice and courtesy, perhaps going out of our way to understand and help them." [Author anonymous.]

I think we move to our beloveds last because we expect with them that it will be easier...expecting them to respond in kind. When we don't get our expected result, it's devastating, and we drop the whole experiment and never move on to those we're not all that fond of to begin with...much less to God.

My life experience in giving love, just love, is it is a daily exercise...first in remembering, then in trying, then in trying again...and yet again. The miraculous news...the beyond my wildest dreams: I know I am going in the right direction. I have had some success. I'm building on that by asking God daily, "Whom  may I serve for you today?"

"You send them, I'll serve them" is my motto...any modicum of success is a YES! day for me.

Thank You.