“The upward gravity of love.”  Meister Eckhart

“To reach more deeply toward the love of Christ within us and to manifest it more fully in the world constitutes the heart of the spiritual journey.” Thomas Keating[1]

When have you received an invitation to love?  As you consider that question your thoughts might automatically be directed toward a spouse, partner, or significant other.  I would invite you to reconsider it in the context of God.  When have you received an invitation to love, and be loved, by God?

I’ve had quite a few in my life, some that I am well aware of, others of which I’m sure I’m oblivious, but the most memorable and life-changing came in  2011.  I was at the St. Walberga retreat center.  I was in a dark and difficult place in my life, so had gone there to find peace, direction, and perhaps even God.  I was disheartened.  Literally.  My heart had gone out of me, for the most important people in my life who had loved me and from whom I had received love had left me; Mother, Wife, Daughters, Sisters.  All gone.  I was bereft of love.  It was on that solitary and silent retreat that I found love—or better said love found me.  And that Love was God.

It wasn’t in the chapel services that God found me, nor during times of solitary prayer, nor walking in the beautiful surroundings. The Love that is God found me in a very unexpected place; the small library.  As I was perusing the books one entitled “Invitation to Love” caught my eye.  I took it from the shelf and began reading.  It spoke to my heart with words describing spiritual life with God that I hadn’t encountered in my previous religious life.  It spoke of life’s descent, often unwilling and unexpected, into the love of God.  It addressed the occupational hazards of religiosity that resulted in becoming a pharisee (that was me). It spelled out the false self and the common dangers inherent in mistaking it for our true selves in God.  The following passage was especially pertinent:

“By consenting . . . to our basic goodness as human beings, and to the letting go of what we love in this world, we are brought to the final surrender, which is to allow the false self to die and the true self to emerge.  The true self might be described as our participation in the divine life manifesting in our uniqueness.”[2]

Here was my invitation!  To grasp that I was not a horrible person unworthy of love, as I had been led to believe by my religious upbringing, which focused on the inherent sinfulness of people.  Rather, I was an object of God’s love, not only despite all that was wrong in my life, but because of it!  Grasping that fundamental truth took a long time and a lot of effort.  I had to unravel all the intricate and well-crafted doctrines and dogmas that I had been taught and immersed myself in for so long, as well as the negative messaging that the world and other people had been all too willing to deliver, which included the judgment of God, church, and others. 

In time the invitation required that in order to love me, God, and others I had to let go of what I loved in this world.  This included not only the people that I had been clinging to, but more importantly the false identity that I had so carefully crafted; that of being a clergy man.  I came to realize that was NOT who I was—or am—but only a false image that I had projected unto the world.  It led me to let go of my career as a pastor, and to let go of my house and my material wealth, all of which I had been using to prop up my false self.  That was the surrender I needed to make for my false self to die and my true self as God’s beloved child to emerge.  It was the upward gravity of love, that first required falling down.

There was much more to the process, and in fact it continues to this day.  But it was a major re-ordering of how I would see both God and me, and how I would navigate this journey of love.  It is a journey that has brought me to see that it is the pure love of God that matters most, that matters only, that matters ultimately, that matters eternally.

Everyday God extends this invitation to love; an invitation to be loved by God, and in turn an invitation to love myself and others with the love of God.  It is an invitation that requires a response of “Yes.”

So, dear friend, what about you?  What is your journey in love?  Have you received an invitation to love?  And if so, how have you responded?

“If I could love as God loves,

 I would not fear the judgment of others.

 Or the loss of my very self

And would know that God is

The One who knows and loves and desires

Himself and all things

And loves me most

When I finally let go of trying

And simply let myself live love.”[3]

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[1] “Invitation to Love.”, p.6

[2] IBID, p. 57

[3] “Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart”, Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows editors.