Relentless Love

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Love relentlessly, she said,

and I want to slip these two words

into every cell in my body, not the sound

of the words, but the truth of them,

the vital, essential need for them,

until relentless love becomes

a cytoplasmic imperative,

the basic building block for every action.

Because anger makes a body clench.

Because fear invokes cowering, shrinking, shock.

I know the impulse to run, to turn fist, to hurt back.

I know, too, the warmth of cell-deep love—

how it spreads through the body like ocean wave,

how it doesn’t erase anger and fear,

rather seeds itself somehow inside it,

so even as I contract love bids me to open

wide as a leaf that unfurls in spring

until fear is not all I feel.

Love relentlessly

          Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer Shared by Diana Butler Bass, The Cottage

_______________________________________

 

Love relentlessly

this is our call

we were made for this

 

for empathy and compassion

for welcome

 

we were made to take care of each other,

to walk each other home

otherwise, why are we here?

 

but is not easy to love when surrounded

by all the miseries of human creatures

as greed, and fear, and insecurity

ooze out of our pores

 

and eat away at love

like acid rain

persistent and unavoidable

 

we see injustice and inequity

iniquity too

we see the poor and the marginalized hurt

and we see the perpetrators

the predators

 

feasting

devouring resources and kindness

and love

 

and so comes anger

more than eager to slip into our souls

 

it is a conundrum

we are angry not because we hate but because we love

we love the refugee and the immigrant

the trans person who is told they don’t exist

the woman, the people of many colors who are told they are less

because they are not white

 

we see them marginalized and minimized

rejected and excluded

we sense the pain and the terror

 

and because we love

we get angry

and anger can become unrighteous

as it slides into the hot, brutal fire of hate

 

how do we love relentlessly

that which is not love

those who perpetrate injustice and cause so much pain?

 

I do not want to hate

nor do I want to walk through life with ears that do not hear

and eyes that do not see

 

I want to be both prophet and priest

I want to see the brokenness of the world

I want to be incapable of unseeing it

I want to feel the pain of injustice

and protest, loudly

 

but I need to do that without hating

those who are bragging and blaming

seeking to plunder and punish

consumed by the lust for power and wealth

 

how can I see beyond the abuse and cruelty

and find space in my heart for the child of God

who is in there, somewhere

and stay in the house of love?

 

only the One who loves me relentlessly

GodWithUs

can help here

 

I must let Sacred embrace me

consume me

I must know and feel that I am loved

relentlessly

by God

 

that is my only hope

as fragile as that might be