Something to Remember

So, this song has been on repeat all day. I have never really paid it much attention until this morning when it played on a random mix a friend gave me for Valentines.

I am hooked. It’s a happy sounding tune. It also speaks truth and for me, truth is attractive. The second verse and bridge are possible some of my favorite lines in a song.

Not sure if I needed to hear it to finally forgive myself or begin the work of mending.

Or maybe I needed the reminder that relationships that have depth, regardless of the type, requires a mutual giving & receiving.

Or maybe I needed to remember my heart is not a curse but a blessing. Though I don’t need to chase pain or allow myself to drown in it, but I don’t need to avoid it or beat myself up because I feel it either.

Or maybe it was the extra push I needed to let go.

Or maybe I needed a new jam to dance to and blast in my car that brings a smile.

Or maybe there are some people who are going to cross my path this week that Love needs me to be so indoctrinated with the words “everybody wants to love, everybody wants to be loved” that they encounter Her and nothing less.

Or maybe I needed to remember that love heals, not bitterness or anger… But love.

Anyway…I do know I am not alone in any of the above and that these words are words we all need to hear every now and then. So, I want to share. Google the video. The words are cool, but the music is sweet too.

Love…

Everybody
-Ingrid Michaelson

We have fallen down again tonight
In this world it’s hard to get it right
Trying to make your heart fit like a glove
What it needs is love, love, love

Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh

Happy is the heart that still feels pain
Darkness drains and light will come again
Swing open your chest and let it in
Just let the love, love, love begin

Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh

Everybody knows the love
Everybody holds the love
Everybody folds for love
Everybody feels the love
Everybody steals the love
Everybody heals with love

Oh oh oh
Just let the love love love begin

Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Everybody, everybody wants to love
Everybody, everybody wants to be loved
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh

A Note to Self

Memory most days is my friend. Last Friday we enjoyed each other for most of the afternoon, especially when sharing with a somewhat attentive ear about the first day I began reading Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II, in 2004 while working in Leeds, England.

I remembered the day as if it had been Thursday, March 28, 2013. I sat for an hour in a small little coffee shop near Leeds University, feasting on each and every line really wanting to digest what this particular influential theological voice had to say about creation… my neighbor… future lovers… me. I did not get very far that first read, I think I only got 5 or so pages in because my imagination was captured by his words that every single created thing is a divine manifestation of a good loving God. I was stuck… Captured. There was absolutely no reason for me to try to read another line in his book that day.

I remember reading the two creation narratives over & over for an hour or so, then journaling for another hour about this reality and the implications of such a truth upon my seeing, speaking, touching and being. It was one of the only moments that the written word read instantaneously transformed my thinking & seeing in such a way I was not the same. It was in some ways my “Aldersgate Moment.”

I remember my vision being the sharpest it has ever been, and possibly will ever be, as I drove home that fall West Yorkshire day in 2004. I was overcome with tears by the light of each and every person I passed, wondering if they could see it to; whelmed by the truth, possibility of things and keen awareness of the harsh daily realities that we can too often give the power to dim such radiance.

During this season of awakening for me, of labor, I am glad memory invites me into moments like last Thursday that helps me push a bit harder and breathe in the stillness of the light within, around, below and above me, as she also invites me into moments that I long to forget but need to remember to forgive… to heal.

The journey awakens the soul.

What is Love?

Below is a poem written by my little friend, Lucy Bella, whose mother posted this on Facebook and they gave me permission to share.
It is delightful and good.
She is a poet.
I love it!

“What is Love?”

Love…
Looks like lips on my cheek.
Smells like perfume in my grandmother’s house.
Feels like tightness in your body.
Sounds like a balloon bursting everywhere.
Tastes like orange juice swishing in your mouth.

By: Lucy C. (a.k.a Lucy Bella)

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
-Pablo Picasso

Making Room

Once again fear paid me a visit.

I gracefully packed his things

and told him it was time for him to leave.

He takes up way too much room, and Love said She need more space.

Love

Everywhere in the world people are in search of love, for everyone is convinced that love alone can save the world; love alone can make life meaningful and worth living. But how very few understand what love really is and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings for others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love.

Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them; otherwise, it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person.

Source: The Way to Love, Anthony de Mello

advent

I am trying to teach my mind to bear the long, slow growth of the fields, and to sing of its passing while it waits. -Wendell Berry

The water broke on February 1.

Took me by surprise, though I sensed the time was near. It was almost as if I was denying the fact that the breaking would one day come, while also being fully aware I could not carry it anymore.

It was time.

You can only carry possibility deep within you for so long. It must be birthed…. it has to breathe. Truth be told, I was way past term and Love spoke yet again into my life, “Beloved, you’re ready.”

So here I am approaching the first day of Lent according to the calendar, but in the thick of advent in my heart and it seems right. So I am going to just flow with it and embrace the new thing Love is wanting to do within me as I go through this particular labor. I surrender.

Too often we… I… just want to hold the beautiful promise without going through the pushing, stretching, waiting, tears, pain and breathing labor requires. But you have to go through it for life.

Not sure what all of this really means for my journey or where it is leading. What I do know is that I anticipate with great joy what Love is creating & re-creating… opening and healing… in life for me right now. For the first time ever, I can say I am thankful for the breaking and hopeful. I know it may get tough and at times pretty darn ugly, but I know Love is going to let it all be beautiful.

I pray…

I listen…

I believe…

I wait…

I labor…

and I will sing.

The Place God Calls You

The Place God Calls You To
Frederick Buechner

There are all kinds of different voices calling you to do all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God, rather than that of society, say, or the super-ego, or self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is the following: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you most need to do, and (b) that the world most needs to have done.

If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you’ve probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by your work, the chances are that you’ve not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

My Love, Don’t Fade Away

… So I watched the world tear us apart
A stoic mind and a bleeding heart
You never see my bleeding heart

And your light’s always shining on
And I’ve been traveling oh so long
I’ve been traveling oh so long

A constant reminder of where I can find her
Light that might give up the way
Is all that I’m asking for without her I’m lost
Oh my love don’t fade away
Oh my love don’t fade away

“Reminder”, Mumford & Sons

the journey

“Fix You”

When you try your best, but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below
When you’re too in love to let it go
But if you never try you’ll never know
Just what you’re worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I…

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I…

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

Listen

The earth has music for those who listen. – George Santayana