I lay awake for hours last night watching my daughter sleep – the night before Easter chocolates, she’s so excited.
I found myself asking God (call it consciousness, great spirit, Allah – whatever) “how can I ever possibly love her enough? You’ve set humans an impossible task.”
She’s so open and pure. Every parent knows, we always fall short of that. Our own beautiful, bumbling humanity gets in the way, no matter our hearts.
I think of God as my dearest friend. I found myself chatting away. “Who has been the human that has loved the most?” I wondered.
I pictured some obscure, simple man or woman in a hut or house just deeply, quietly being love.
Loving trees, loving water, loving birds, loving children, loving people. No fuss or fanfare. Walking so lightly on the earth that each step was thoughtful. Energy going toward not harming. Within community. Within family.
I wondered about their human struggles. Living alone, it’s easy to maintain equilibrium – if we’re really here, and we are really willing to be in close proximity to other humans, that’s where we meet our humanity most deeply.
“Spirituality” or “being love” has moved out of caves, off isolated hills, or ashrams and into the womb of us.
Can we do it here, in the streets? Even amidst a riot? (Think 6 year old jacked up on sugar all day).
Was Christ the most loving incarnation? I once read a channelling with Christ (and it’s very rare I read things like that) where Jesus spoke about “himself” and said that Christ was not his highest lifetime. But an unknown woman that lived “after” was.
What is it to love as deeply as possible? To let the love we are, move through us completely.
I turned these thoughts over.
Grace plays such an important role in love. She teaches that. Forgiveness. Of “other” and “ourselves.”
Giving over.
And so we walk on.
We rise in the morning. Brush teeth tenderly. Watch the window for dew and kingfishers. Make the porridge. Tend the flowers. Scrub the floors. Metaphorical and physical.
We listen. Let butterflies, moths and seasons teach us. We forgive ourselves our own humanity. While revering it deeply. Look to the sky, and wonder.
Perhaps the greatest act of love is truly finding joy in the sacred ordinary – not as a concept but an experience. Miraculous things that we mistake as simple things when we take them for granted.
Like grass all around us, growing. Or our children, eyes wide under the moon. Blood spilling between our parted legs, food growing under our careful hands. The person we loves deep familiar form pulling us in.
Dust and dew and the odd moment of true connection and understanding. Our breath misting cool air, the wintering of our own hearts – usually right before they burst into brighter spring.
Waking in a night to match my breathing with hers.
Pulling her to me. Trying again tomorrow.
The gift of each other. Dancing us more and more deeply into love.