Too much personal stuff Sorry
Perhaps Gene….and yet it was so poignant and relevant. I knew exactly what you meant and related so personally to it myself. Thank you. While I will not even attempt a restatement, let me say how much I agree that what we have to give is our love and we must give it freely with hope but without strings of obligation and debt and if we can learn to do so then come great gifts to us. I teach my little ones that so long as we are the most important person in our life, happiness will not come to us…we must love and serve to be happy in life.
In my immaturity, I have enabled and given false sympathy (assistance and aid and sorrow for the suffering caused by one’s own choices – a detrimental and counterproductive form of sympathy) and protected those I love from the repercussions of their choices. One learns better – or should! And, like you Gene, I have given in ways which cost me personal material wealth and security but truly made a difference and provided a bridge at a critical time to someone I love which delivered them to that better place….sometimes, like you, I even get gratitude, but more often not even recognition and acknowledgement of the success of my service and love. I have found that such generosity has always been rewarded by more daily bread, more peace of mind, more happiness, more love and affection and respect received over time…indeed, the balance sheet may come up short on the material side but is endlessly bounteous on the spiritual and inner life side! Love does not cost….it only yields!
And what an important point you made Gene…..it is not about the recognition, acknowledgement, appreciation, or even success of such gifts and such loving service….it is just an expression of love and who we are!! In my life I have found such loving service to be everywhere and given by so many….and so often by complete strangers to other strangers….random but intentional acts of kindness, the Good Samaritan syndrome endlessly playing out every day and everywhere. It is a pity there are those who cannot see this light of life that shines all around but only see the patches of shadow cast by the errors of intention or expression by our immature fellows.
Love is complex….but so very powerful….and pervasive! It’s everywhere…it saturates reality….it only disappears in non-realities. Otherwise, it is the river of life itself, a torrent of love that sweeps reality forward endlessly.
There are more and less wise forms of its expression and more and less self forgetting forms as well. Thus the gift of time and experience, the tools of wisdom formation….learning to climb the rungs of the Golden Rule and the love ladder….from doing to others as we would have done to us, to brotherly affection, to paternal/fatherly love, to Divine loving. Love is a force of nurturing, fostering, and hope.
It is unfortunate that all of us sometime and some of us all the time place limits and conditions on love….we demand/require recognition, gratitude, specific results, and micro management of process and outcomes…..or we are disappointed in our so called gifts of love. Some are so focused on what is “refused” and what “fails”….always focused on what others do or do not do and what others should do or should not do….never achieving that sublime peace that comes from simply placing the bread of love upon the waters of life, knowing that the gift of love is never wasted, can never be wasted….but always flows forth in its ministry and with its power to serve the greater good for the greatest number. The gift of love always has repercussions and effect….not only on others but also on the source of its giving and the branch through which it flows.
Or so I believe and have found true in my own religious experience. Sorry for those who did not get to read Gene’s post as it was wonderfully illuminating!
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
