Where to Now?

I want to begin the New Year with a conversation about Love--not as a set of behaviors, but as "a way of being." That is, a way of living our day-to-day lives.

This is going to be difficult and somewhat impossible since Love cannot be accurately described in words. Therefore, I will be "talking" directly to your heart--which will be reflected by what you feel. I am not speaking to your mind or the emotions it continually generates in response to its opinions of my words.

In any case, I will attempt to describe Love with the hope that the words I write are "inspired" by some place, force, or energy that is beyond the limitations of my own mind.

I begin by expressing that the Love I speak of has no opposite, such as hate. The Love I speak of is transcendent to human-created dichotomies, such as good/evil, love/hate, right/wrong, superior/inferior, etc. With these assumptions in mind, I will make my best attempt at the impossible.

Love is.....

-- the non-judgemental acceptance of one's self

-- the unconditional acceptance of others

-- compassion for those who are harmful to us

-- empathy for those who learn life's lessons through conflict and crisis

-- realizing both our equality and connectedness

-- realizing that we all want health, peace, and happiness in our lives- but struggle to achieve it

-- realizing that fear is a human instinct and Love is a spiritual way of being

-- realizing that hate (as a human emotion) is driven from fear

-- realizing who we truly are transcends our our physical appearance (We are spiritual beings having a human experience)

-- an eternal part of human existence, no matter how much we deny it by our actions

-- recognizing that everyone in our lives is a teacher

-- the only Force that can sustain human existence on Planet Earth

I know I don't have them all, because I could go on endlessly and never capture Love totally in words. If, at first, one of these phrases does not resonate with you, give it time. Try not to reject it (or them) out of hand. Some will resonate more than others. Those that we disagree with are, perhaps, our areas of new learning. If we, collectively, decided to live most of these descriptions as individuals, we would not need leaders to create peace for us.

In this sense, peace originates within each of us and is reflected by the external condition of our selves, families, communites, cities, nations, and planet. (This is the message of Animal Kingdom.)

Let's personally decide, each day, how we choose the planet to be--and live that way!