Whatever happens,

Those who have learned to love one another

have made their way to the lasting world

and will not leave

Whatever happens.

Wendell Berry

 

Why can’t we just love one another? God must hurt for us. For all the blessings, we continue to fall short on our Creator’s only ask—to love. There is no judgment. God knows we will make mistakes, lose our courage, even fail miserably in our efforts. Still, love is our only hope for ascribing meaning to this earthly experience. It’s also all we really have any control over in this crazy world—the giving and receiving of love.

 

I don’t think I am alone in feeling as if our world feels especially delicate right now, as if one more piece of bad news would surely topple all that is good and beautiful. Jesus spoke plainly: love God and your neighbor, and all will be well. The sun has risen on another day. God is offering us yet another chance to try again.

Holy Spirit,

Your love plan is at work

Even if today I struggle to see it

Never perfect is the experience

Never without its defeats and daily laboring

You have given me the opportunity

to defy what appears

fragile, flawed and hopeless

And help write a new story

Your Spirit lives in me

In all of us

My life’s work is to reveal it:

Muscle and soul

Bravery and vulnerability

Sacrifice and hope

All of it is required—If Your Love is to prevail

Today You are asking me to love more and better

not carefully, quietly or just enough,

but from the best in me

You in me.

So that whenever, whoever

crosses my path

they will

feel safe

hopeful

celebrated

And in that twinkling of a breath,

a little of heaven will be pulled to earth on my watch

All of us, together

will live as You originally intended

Not in fear, but together in

perfect hope.

Amen.