Entering the eternal circle of love.
(2.08.23)
There is an idea in Ignatian spirituality that
the love of God flows towards us through the whole of creation. The concept of creation includes all that we love in nature but also expands to the creation of the human family and its many works. So imagine, if you can, the ways that grace is flowing towards you through the beaches and the forests, the stars and the skies, the desert and the garden, the parkland and the Mallee scrub. Continue to imagine this grace flowing towards you through architecture, poetry, music, sport, public libraries, healthcare and transport, everyday kindnesses, and services of those who support and enable our lives. The whole thing … God’s gentle eyes upon you, God’s administration of grace towards you, through all of creation.
And now, consider the ways that you and I can return love to God, which is to say that we can participate in this loving cycle/circle of divine grace. All of creation makes itself available to us as a context for our return of love. Which means that the ways that we receive and return love are unique to our personality, wiring, capacities, and limitations. How perfect! As I give way in traffic, I return love. As I choose a way to shop that reduces waste packaging, I am in worship. As I stop long enough to listen to a four-year-old tell her story, here I am again, engaged in my devotional life, participating in this ceaseless circle of receiving and giving. This is fertile ground for the mind and the heart, it is health to the body, and it fits and flows with my everyday routines and obligations. All that is required is a simple turn of the heart. Or in the words of Mary Oliver, in her poem, Wild Geese:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Peace be with as you travel along the loving way.
A message from the Author
