Issue No. 4, June 15, 2008
Beloved Children of the Light,
The Challenge of Loving
Each heart that is open wants to learn how to love better. Sometimes such longing is confined to one's partner or spouse. Sometimes it includes friends, or parents, or children. And sometimes it includes the world in its totality, with a desire to transmit love to all, to heal the suffering of the world through the power of love.
There are those who find it easy to convey love on a personal level to the select few whom they choose to befriend in life, but not to others. Such people may know something about personal love but not about universal love.
There are others who find it easy to love on a soul level, recognizing each one as a spiritual being, but find it difficult to love in a more grounded way – to love the embodied self that exists in an utterly unique form with specific strengths, limitations, and weaknesses.
Wherever we are with love, there is someplace else to grow into, for the capacity to love with God's love is infinite, and so it must of necessity keep growing until it becomes one with its Divine prototype.
What is most useful is for each of us to know and acknowledge where our love runs into boundaries and barriers. Where it stops being a flowing stream, and becomes dammed up instead. In some cases, fear of being hurt creates the barrier to love's further expression. In other cases, overactive judgment creates a prejudice which effectively closes the door to love. In still other cases, wounds to the heart have occurred at such a deep level that it may seem like the stream of love has dried up entirely. Though this may feel true, it is never the case. For the stream of love flows from the Source at all times, and though its passage through us may be hindered by individual fears and judgments, once free of these, the stream can begin to flow again, for, in reality, it has never ceased flowing.
Our love for the planet must be both universal and personal. It must include all souls everywhere without distinction, and must, at the same time, feel their very uniquely individual identities. For without the understanding that each one is a world unto themselves, we will not know or appreciate the great beauty and complexity of each individual life. And without awareness of their deeply held identity as Divine children of God, we will not feel our oneness with them or theirs with us unless there is a specific outer resemblance or likeness that we can identify with
The opportunity to love more is always before us. Whether we sit in meditation, or walk down the way, whether we converse with others at work, or silently immerse ourselves in nature – the source of love is within us as well as around us and we can seek its expression in each moment.
Blessed are those who seek to know the infinity of God's love, for they will reap the rewards of a loving heart.
Julie Redstone
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Error Notice: Some of you were mistakenly sent a copy of a template for the Sacred World Newsletter that we have been working on for future issues. Our apologies. This template was mailed in error and the problem has been corrected.
Publication Change: The Sacred World Newsletter is now being published twice monthly on the first and fifteenth of the month. With this in mind, we have renumbered the first three issues for May 1, 15, and June 1st. The present issue is the fourth. For back issues go to http://oneworldmeditations.org/NL/Archive.html.
