Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Love It Rather than Leave It

Intense times. So many people are near or at their breaking point and it is not because of the holidays. The energy has been building for some time now. Extremes are more extreme. We are experiencing unprecedented weather and earth changes as well as unprecedented governmental and societal changes. We are in for the ride of our lives and it is up to each of us to decide how this wild and crazy ride ends.

During such times of chaos and turmoil, it is important to remember that the energy isn't all "bad." There is a flip side to this insanity - the flowering of the human heart.

Everyday we are shown examples of how our hearts are opening. Recently, a soldier was on his way to work when his pick-up truck slid off an icy road and crashed into a bridge pillar. Stranger and after stranger stopped to help pry him out of his badly mangled truck that was now on fire. One "stranger" realized he knew the first good Samaritan that stopped to help. A third "stranger" stopped, and as he approached the truck, realized that the driver was his captain and shouted, "We can't leave him. We've got to get him out!" Through shear determination, teamwork, and hearts operating in unison, they pulled him out of the 20 inch opening they managed to create just seconds before the truck exploded into flames. This true story is a perfect example that none of us are strangers: We are all related. It also shows what we can accomplish when are hearts are open and act in unison. 

We know the world is facing its greatest challenges: wars, extreme earth changes, new diseases, shortages of clean water, political and social unrest, and radioactive contamination from Fukushima, to name a few. Why don't we include at the top of the list the single most important and life-changing challenge that every one of us will face...the opening of our heart and the call to love? Isn't that what each of the above challenges is calling us to do? 

We are called to make our own powerful internal shift from fear to love, to open our hearts and love even more than we think we can. To love someone who is unkind, to love those who hurt us, to love what we find most reprehensible, this is the path we are called to walk. Love is the way through this. When we live in love with everything and everyone, our lives change in ways we didn't think were possible. 

We have the power to change this world, to love it rather than leave it, to recreate heaven on Earth. This Christmas and beyond, keep the love flowing. Open your heart a little more each day. Commit to doing one thing each day that is heart-opening and loving, a random act of kindness. Help a "stranger." Love the god in each of us.