The Language of Love

Dear Friends: In my last blog, I quoted Mother Teresa, who talked about those who feel unwanted, unloved and uncared for, as evidenced in the West, which are things much harder to "fix" than poverty, hunger and homelessness. The Delegates' Conference this year was entitled, Finding our Voice, but we soon found in our workshops that it is really about finding a way to express the love each of us holds in our hearts for our church, or spiritual home. The New Testament, from cover to cover, is the highest expression of love. Through the Deed of Christ, the disciples were able to become "apostles", or conveyors or an even better word could be "channel" of this love. What we experience as individuals in the Act of Consecration, we experience as love, and when we try to explain to other people what our church is all about, it helps if we remember that we are in fact trying to express love, that is, something that dwells in our hearts. When we go back out into the world after a service, we are carrying within us something not just for ourselves, but something that wants to be expressed in the world around us. Everyone knows that this is a risky business. You could get slapped in the face, you could have your heart broken, but the fact is that from the time we are born, we need and continue to seek for love. Everyone you meet, is longing for love, for community, for a "spiritual" home. How each individual, or each community, sets about to express that love, is unique. We become Board Members because not only do we love our church, we want to find ways to care for it. We become servers because, not only do we love the Act of Consecration, we also want to help carry it. Men and women may wish to become priests out of the love they hold for their fellow human being. We become artists or writers out of a need to find ways to express divine inspiration. A valuable experience to me when I go to a delegates' meeting is to experience a Sunday Service with our hosts. Each chapel is different, every altar painting is different, every priest brings something personal and unique. In Devon, I have never seen a community so devoted to their church and their priests. The love these members hold was literally shining from their eyes, their devotion abundantly clear, and I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to witness it, but then, what else should I have expected, from the City of Brotherly Love? Petals have fallen from the rose, Revealing the seed of the Spirit. Song: For this the heavens are waiting, written by Giselher Weber, who lives on Vancouver Island, and translated by Michael Brewer. Sparky