A Great Love, part I

Floor tile from Royaumont Abbey

I’m not going to agree with everyone. 

More often than not, I see I don’t even agree with myself. 

Walk past that. Walk past it from within on a path within; a path defined by consistent aim.

I have two parts, or two natures, which struggle with one another. One is wicked; the other, good. My wickedness always has a strong wish of its own to have its way. It’s my responsibility to form a will which is independent of this wickedness—a will which sees it, and goes against it.

Above all, in any moment—in any day— the question in front of me is how I can deepen Love in myself. 

If I’m able to deepen Love by becoming more open to its influence, what flows into Being from within and without is influenced not by my wickedness, but by Love itself. It has the capacity to permeate Being; but only if it’s attended to.

The deepening of Love within being is related to the permanence of sensation. Deepening only follows on many long years of concentration of inner force. This inner force is a force of Love which becomes more and more concentrated over time. This force lies in the molecules of Being, not in the thoughts or the intellect. It’s a quality of vibration that develops slowly over time. Eventually, it forms a substrate of deposits that are capable of receiving Love in a deeper form.

This Love I speak of isn’t my own Love, which is firmly and (for the most part destructively) attached to this world and its material things. It is the essential Love of God’s Being, which has a particulate nature—it consists of universally distributed materials which penetrate everything.

Deepening Love begins with an inner commitment to this material which flows in. It naturally matures within being to a sensation and a feeling of God’s Love, which is commonly referred to by some as Presence. The word itself derives from the Latin praesentia, meaning “being at hand.” The word is apt because it implies a tactile proximity (at hand) that reminds us of sensation. Yet the word has more depths: it is a combination of prae, before, and esse— to be. In a sense, then, it implies what precedes Being. There is, in other words, the implication of a transcendent form that lies behind Being itself; and that is God.

 So while walking here or there, one comes perhaps to a sense that the sacred is immediately proximate; that by deepening the sensation of Love, one may come into closer contact with that force; and that it may in its own turn feed much deeper parts of Being.

 All in the service of a greater Love, which is what we so certainly need in these times.

Hoping that you find an intimate relationship with Love today,

Lee