Love

Our word this week is "love", and honestly, I thought "duh".

I mean, really? Aren't we all surrounded by love? Isn't that too easy?

The joke's on me. NOT easy at all. Serious contemplation of the word and what might be worthy of a few hundred words caused me to reconsider my callous attitude.

I quit pouting, considered myself spanked, swallowed my pride and tried to narrow down the field.

Of things I love.

Of people I love.

Of places I love.

Of ways I love.

Of where I experience love.

Of how I receive love.

Of how I give love.

Of the love I want.

Of the love I had.

Of the love I long for.

(See what I mean??????)

This is no slight thing, either in concept or construct.

And there is this: Every prompt does more than elicit a blog post. I find myself seeing differently. Contemplating. Considering.

Noticing.

(I recall a theme from last fall…..)

ANYWAY:

Love.

Here's all I have: A father and a son, not estranged, but not quite right. Awkward. Time and divorces and careless comments had twisted connections into hard, dense bullets of hesitation and a palpable wariness. Eager to please, anxious to bridge the gap, but never. quite. there.

We had journeyed to visit the patriarch of the family, an intentional effort that involved only one destination. That, in itself, spoke volumes; a trip that, in the past, included other family members was this time reduced to his family, and only his. It mattered.

We stepped across the threshold and into a new guest room, one that held too many memories to approach with any comfort. And yet all things become new, and time brings change; a sort of anointing happened right there before our eyes, with prayer and a faith that we could move forward.

There is a holiness, a sacred space created when relationships begin to stretch and change shape. When one is willing to reach across the divide and say, "Let's move past what was and step into something new," and the other smiles and that smile says, "I never thought you'd ask."

I stood back and watched something beautiful happen, right before my eyes. Prayers flew like bullets, it seemed; I had this deeply rooted, visceral sense of without ceasing going on and on and on, always. Flowing, a current of love-to-come out of the deep roots of genetic and historical connection.

Father and son, they are so alike in so many ways. The more I saw and heard, the more I saw the likeness. Time together does that, no? We spend time with ones we love, whose likeness we claim, and the identification becomes more apparent.

This is the mystery, the connective tissue.

God is love.

Love is of God.

Anyone who loves is born of God and truly knows God.

Holy. Sacred. Bound.

A father loves his son, a son loves his father, and sometimes all they need is some space in which to set it into motion.

And that is a beautiful thing.