Dear All of Us,
Years ago my wife used to
tuck a tiny love note in with
our kids' school lunches.
A generation later,
our daughter
does that for little,
four-year-old, Ollie.
The other day when she
opened her lunch at work,
tucked in was a
little scrap of paper.
There were three hearts drawn
and in a four-year old's squiggly,
O l l i e
Love is contagious.
Love is
CAUGHT
"GOD IS LOVE"
I John 4:8
How wonderful
for many of us
to be enlivened
by people and
spiritual communities
with a highly
communicable,
pervasive,
expanding
outbreak
of
God's love.
Love is contagious.
Love is
CAUGHT
How vital for us and others
to mix it up
in social circles of
really loving people.
For them and for us
Love is contagious.
Love is
CAUGHT
What a joy for us to be people
overflowing with love for others.
We are hot with God's love.
We are "in" love and that
Love is contagious.
Love is
CAUGHT
The love we're
talking about here
is caught from
Jesus
"As the Father has loved me
so I have loved you.
Abide in my love...
("abide" - be right at home).
Love each other
as I have loved you."
(John 15:9&12)
Now, that's one
heaven of a love!!
Absolutely divine.
Highly contagious.
It is a Love that is
CAUGHT
by us and from us.
What Thomas Merton said
about other religions
sure does apply to us.
He said that if you want
to find out about Buddhism,
don't study its theology.
Go find a holy Buddhist.
You'll catch on.
May we keep catching on
from Love Lites in our midst.
May others catch on from us.
God love
is first of all
a matter
of the heart,
at the heart
of our spiritual lives.
The head "figurings"
about God follow
and it's a distant follow.
An informative promo about
Cape Cod doesn't even
come in a distant second
to a week in a
seaside cottage
at Truro
("abide" - be right at home).
It's just like our
falling in love
with another.
We are
attracted,
engaged
by their
"loveliness."
It's
CAUGHT
We want to
"abide" with them.
Then comes all the
facts and figures
about it -
when's your birthday,
are you into
Blue Grass or Bach,
is it meat and potatoes
or Blue Zone
for dinner,
what's your family
and friends like,...?
So, too,
all the theology
we have.
It can be good,
but will never peg God.
It follows the lead of
love lived, of
love's primacy.
Remember the old bromide,
"You're the only Bible
some people will ever read"?
Actually, we are the only Bible
that other people will
ever really believe.
because
God's love
is first
CAUGHT
then taught
I know of what I speak.
I initially caught God
from my Mother,
then from others
and blessedly
from my wife.
It's never
an "ology"
at all.
It always a
joyous,
generous,
actuality,
an experience of
Oneness Divine,
lived real,
beyond words,
God Love,
delightfully
CAUGHT
When Ollie
grows up
I pray
he will be in
communities
of contagious
God Love,
God Love that
he is now catching
from his Mom
(and for sure from his dad!).
May he and we
continue so
and be darn divinely
contagious in sharing
God's Love,
CAUGHT
******
Thanks for being here.
Thanks also for sharing
frankly speaking
with others.
Online posting
Thursday mornings
East Coast USA time
A few past postings
are available by
scrolling way down
beneath
this posting.
Our focus here
is living
The Love That Is God.
We do that in a time
of much hard, cruel
unlove.
Together let's hold in
heart and prayer all those
suffering in war, genocide,
hunger, fascism, dislocation,
family separations.
Let's do what we can
for them' e.g.
A group of young mothers
at a local church here in DC,
quietly outfitted the children
of a large immigrant family
for school -
quietly, discretely,
given the frigid,
hardness of ICE.
Those Moms caught on.
They are Love Contagious.
See you next week.
May we all contract and be
beautifully contagious in
God's Love Lived.
That love to all.
God Bless,
John Frank
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
******
