When we were kids, making a connection with another child was often very easy. There was a little dance in the beginning, and then...zip/bang...we fell in love and started to play.
Depending upon the total environment (parents, siblings, neighborhood etc), this was more or less hard for each of us. But we soon passed out of this angelic realm of childhood, and into places where being open and spontaneous with our natural love led too soon to hurt, or rejection.
So we forgot how to love, in its easy way, the way we knew as children.
Well, I don't think we forget it, we just become too scared, too edgy to go there. For some its called growing up - to lose or forget our original nature. But Christ told us something in Matthew 18:1-4:
"At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?". And Jesus called a little child to him, set him in their midst, and said, "Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whoever, therefore, humbles himself as this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Now "the kingdom of heaven" does refer to where we go when we die, but in the teachings of the Gospels, it generally refers to direct and personal experience of the world of the spirit. Again, we assume that this is something difficult and far away, but that too is false. Christ tells us...the kingdom of heaven is at hand...the kingdom of heaven is within you. Sometimes He speaks of the kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of heaven. In the Gospel of Thomas, the matter is more explicit.
We also are taught to pray: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven."
So, if the kingdom comes on Earth, what is that?
Love, like the children do, - humble, spontaneous, carefree - each and everyone.
So, how you say?
Well, practice makes perfect we have been told.
Start with the eyes, and with the song in your speech. Love everyone you meet. Remember the cheer we feel at Christmas, and then make it Christmas everyday.
Yea, it's hardest with those we know most intimately. So many habits, and fixed ways of being and thinking. Think of being "grown up" as a kind of addiction, something pasted over our hearts. So you don't have to make a big deal of it, like you have to love fully, now and forever. Rather, just one day at a time, a little bit at a time. In bits in pieces people really won't notice and then think you are being strange.
Not sure what love is? Well, there's always St Paul and 1 Corinthians 13...
"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.
And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver my body that I may boast but have not love, nothing I am profited.
Love is long suffering, love is kind, it is not jealous, love does not boast, it is not inflated.
It is not discourteous, it is not selfish, it is not irritable, it does not enumerate the evil. It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth.
It covers all things, it has faith for all things, it hopes in all things, it endures in all things.
Love never falls in ruins; but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or tongues, they will cease; or knowledge, it will be superseded.
For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.
When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I reckoned as an infant; when I became [an adult], I abolished the things of the infant.
For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.
But now remains faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
There are mysteries in this passage, and we could discuss them if some folks want. When you get up in the morning, pray out loud the Lord's Prayer (but privately - even in the shower), keeping in mind that it is not a personal prayer, but one that includes all of us, for it uses our and we, but nowhere says I.
Having a difficult moment, sing. Nothing lightens the heart as does song.
Someone giving you a hard time, look them straight in the eye and ask them to try harder. You'd be surprised how that feels to both of you.
One last item from the great teacher of Love: Matthew 11: 28-30: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. "Take my yoke upon, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." posted November 1st, 2003.
