something of God

God comes to us disguised as our life.

                     Paula D’Arcy says, “

 

I kneel once more on the rough coconut matting, my hands over my eyes, and pray: “Oh, Lord, let me feel at one with myself. Let me perform a thousand daily tasks with love, but let every one spring from a greater central core of devotion and love.” Then it won’t really matter what I do and where I am. . .

 

We could fight war and all its excrescences by releasing, each day, the love that is shackled inside us, and giving it a chance to live. . . .

 

All that matters now is to be kind to each other with all the goodness that is in us. . . .

 

And there is only one way of preparing the new age, by living it even now in our hearts. .

 

I love people so terribly, because in every human being I love something of You [God]. . .

 

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.

                     Etta Hillemun (from Auschwitz, as quoted by Richard Rohr)

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all that is love is Sacred

all that is Sacred is love

 

it is the nature of that present power

in which we live and breathe

and have out being

 

to be love

 

it is also its nature to be present

 

Sacred is incarnational

it is fleshed out in this world in which we live

in the mountain that looms above my home

and lifts my heart towards heaven

 

it is fleshed out in the animals that delight my soul

 

it is fleshed out in this body

in this peculiar life

and in the bodies and lives of those I love

and in the bodies and lives of those with whom I struggle

 

even as our bodies fail

even as our minds are ideologically impaired

even as we are immersed in conflict and chaos

 

there is something of God in us, waiting to get out

there is Love in us waiting to get out

 

and the Love in me wants to greet the love in you

no matter the barriers

no matter the abyss between our ideologies

no matter the dysfunction in my life, and in your life

 

there is something of God in me that wants to

connect with the “something of God” in you

 

there is something that wants to find

communion

commonality

compassion

connection

 

I want to give the love that is shackled within me

a chance to live

 

this is how we work toward peace

this is how we create healing and reconciliation

this is how we bind the wounds

this is how we end war

and usher in this kingdom

 

this is the way

the only way

love wins