Tag Archive: love
I have been away in NZ recently for my foster sisters wedding, most of my family are non-Christian but this sister converted to Catholicism to be with her partner and accepted by his family. I read 12 Corinthians 13 in the ceremony – “love is patient, love is kind…” Weddings have a way of bringing lots of different people together and we all need to put aside our individual preferences in favour of these two getting married. She is Maori and he is Samoan so there were different parts of the reception in different languages and around the speeches we’re all trying to follow the correct cultural protocols. We arrive at the reception and realise that our Mum’s speech as Mother of the Bride requires a waiata following her words – we realise there’s one song we basically all know from primary school which echoes the reading – Mum leads off from the front and we have to stand and join in from where we’re sitting and move to stand behind her – it’s only as we get there that we realise other women, family and friends are standing and moving to sing with us also.
Te aroha – love
Te whakapono – faith
Te rangimarie – peace
Tatou tatou e – all of these
This was profoundly significant… I thought attending the wedding was a bit like sharing communion: sometimes we need to speak a new language/learn a new culture to show love; participating in a covenant can mean putting aside our individual preferences – going out of our comfort zone – in order to achieve something bigger together.
In sharing this celebration cup together, we are reminded of the bigger call on our lives to walk a different way, of putting aside our individual needs to further the greater good we believe in – the kingdom of God. Let’s take a moment to sit in silence as the elements are passed around and reflect on where God is calling us into communion.
(silence)
When we toast a couple – linking their names, blessing their shared life together, wishing all good things… let us invoke God’s blessing on the life we share together and all the things we wish for for our world and for each other… to the kingdom of God!
A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton
The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice.
Although it was cold he was happy in there. It was, after all, his cage.
Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.
I like this Dinosaur thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny.
He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.
I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur, thought the Dinosaur.
She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice.
She is also a free spirit which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.
But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
He is also overly fond of things.
Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of things?
But her mind skips from here to there so quickly thought the Dinosaur.
She is also uncommonly keen on shopping.
Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?
I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for things, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
For they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.
I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping, thought the Dinosaur.
For she fills our life with beautiful thoughts and wonderful surprises. Besides,
I am not unkeen on shopping either.
Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old.
Look at them.
Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.
And that, my friends, is how it is with love.
Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together.
For the sun is warm.
And the world is a beautiful place
“This is giving your life to the one within that you know as Lord, which is a totally private matter. No one except you can judge how that is going. But if you’re not doing it, Rumi says, you are wasting your time here.” Coleman Barks. Preface, pg xv
The Way of Love is:
- the path of annihilation – die before you die
- not religious
- escaping into silence
Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul can read and recollect.
- a mystical conversation or shobet
- is learning through grief
My work is to carry this love
As comfort for those that long for you,
To go everywhere you’ve walked
And gaze at the pressed down dirt.
- discipline – polishing the mirror
Rumi says an ecstatic human being is a polished mirror that cannot help reflecting. What we love, we are. As the heart becomes cleaner, we see the kingdom as it is. We become reflected light. The polishing may be related to practices, a devotion we do everyday that is an emptying out…
What does it look like to remember who we are (our best selves) and acting from there?
What practices could we engage in that help us remember?
Drowning
What can I say to someone so curled up
with wanting, so constricted
in his love? Break your pitcher
against a rock. We don’t need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.
we must drown, away from heroism,
and descriptions of heroism.
Like a pure spirit lying down, pulling
its body over it, like a bride her husband
for a cover to keep her warm.
Longing
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.
in the face of unwelcome
love makes a way
against powers politic
love makes a way
counter to public feeling
love makes a way
to closed fist, reach open hand
love makes a way
traveller greeting fellow traveller
love makes a way
love makes a way
we share life together
you and I
you know me and I know you
I try to tell you about my day
while we load the dishwasher, bathe the kids, clear the
table, sign the permission slip, find today’s
reader, break up the fight…
Are you listening to me?
I don’t feel heard.
I do things for you all the time
and you do them for me
we’ve been at this for a while
and we have our rhythms and habits…
do you think though, we could ask more often
“What do you need?”
I suppose I want to pick and choose
only being helpful in those ways
I like
we each need the reminder that
love finds a way
you know me and I know you
you and I
we share life together
Talitha Fraser
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