122
I read somewhere recently (and I can’t remember where, unfortunately) that one of the most difficult things in life is to be loved.
I might offer that loving others is hard, too, but there is something about receiving love that makes many of us squeamish or uncomfortable. There are a lot of feelings that basically can be summed up by the sentiments of You’re not doing it right or You’re not doing it enough, which could also be interpreted as I need this to be different in order to understand it or believe it.
We can talk about love languages all day. Lots of people do and there definitely is value in taking a quiz or reading a book to get to know yourself better and to learn how you interpret and express love. No question.
But one of the fascinating byproducts of developing faith has been that I like - nay, I love - myself more, I feel better, I feel calmer, I interpret various BLEEPstorms in my life (because they do still churn up) as important spiritual lessons rather than exercises in misery, and I accept myself more, therefore I seem to like or love other people just as they are. I appreciate what they can offer me rather than feel angry about what they do not, and I see and feel their love in whatever ways they can deliver it, rather than expecting or wanting it to be better or different.
(Man, I am the ultimate in run on sentences)
I wish I could tell everyone in the world, Just keep praying. Not to any specific deity (but, of course, proceed in that version of belief if it appeals), but just to faith itself. Faith in Good, faith in God, faith in the Universe or Allah or Jesus or Buddha. The act of prayer externalizes fate. It is the start of relinquishing our obsession with control. It is an act of taking all of the ego’s toys away and putting it in timeout.
Prayer can’t necessarily erase cancer or evil or war, sadly, but I do think prayer about such things can’t possibly hurt. If anything, it is an exercise in counteracting the most difficult things in life, and should be seen as an act of resistance against the dark forces in our human experience. What causes cancer? All the chemicals, poisons, and stressors we are exposed to and put into our bodies. What is war? An expression of the darkness in the hearts of humankind. What is evil? I would argue it is darkness in singular form.
But such things should be a reason to pray harder, in my view, rather than a reason to avoid prayer altogether.
Having tried everything else on the BLEEPING planet to get to a place of self-love in the last couple of decades, I can attest that the act of prayer on a regular basis and just pursuing faith as an act of BLEEP IT, nothing else has worked was kind of the only way I could get there. I’m not saying it’s the only path, but I couldn’t really force self-love upon… myself (nothing like walking into in a random Austin Power reference). I had to arrive there by accident through a commitment to having faith, no matter what.
And, now, I genuinely feel like I can weather any storm, that I am due all good things in the human experience, and that I am worthy of and can experience love in all the ways it is offered. I’m not sure what to make of it other than to say God is Good.