A Touch of Love

Love is both an instinct and a choice. There are people, places and things that we love and that bring us joy. And there are also people, places and things that we may be repulsed by. Love doesn't always flow for us toward things we find repellant, though we may feel bad that it doesn't. Is it hard to love the slug eating your lettuces? Or the scary looking homeless person sitting on the corner? How about the politician you don't trust?

Love is a choice at such times. I can choose to withhold love and go about my business, or I can take such times as a reminder that to love is divine, as they say. Can I bring more love into the world by choosing to love the difficult?

There are simple practices we can use to open the door to loving. Here is one.

What if you imagined that everything around you is alive with the light of the sacred? The walls of your home, the plates you wash, the lights you turn on, the tools you use – those everyday things we take for granted are also expressions of the Sacred Mystery. We know of no other planet on which such things exist. 

Take a moment, breathe gently and relax your body, and let a sense of love fill your mind and heart. Notice the felt sense of this presence of love, and just sit with it, letting it fill your body – it flows down your legs into the floor and earth, it flows up your spine into your crown, it flows down your arms into your hands and fingers.  

Reach out your hands and touch something near you, allowing a sense of love to pour through your hands into that something, honoring its shape, its texture, its function, and giving thanks for it. Let yourself notice and appreciate the uniqueness of that item and the gifts it brings you. Recognize that it is a manifestation of the sacred, probably through the creativity of human minds and hands.  What does it feel like to let love connect you with this thing? 

Move about your room touching a few more things and letting yourself offer love to them, noticing connection and honoring of them as you do. When you are done, bring your thoughts and your sense of love flow back into your individual self, and appreciate again your own self, your own light of the sacred within.

When you feel finished or ready to move on, bring this sense of love with you into your day, touching your world with your love.