What can love do today?

What makes a good life – what is a good life?

Following is a reflection written November, 2019, based on scripture readings – the writing reflects my experience – and my experience of the Light becomes my guide. Here are the scriptures read that day:

Psalm 56, 57, [58]; Neh. 6:1-19; Rev. 10:1-11; Matt. 13:36-43

Here is the experience – reflection experienced: Thinking, Feeling, Behaving Choices

Human beings are made such that we experience emotions, we can reflect upon them, and we can manage them. Our scripture readings today describe this, especially the psalms and Nehemiah.

For an example, consider how like today is the psalmist’s lament and prayer (56). The psalmist’s view of the world is polarized. Nothing is described but fear and enmity all around.

The problem with this is God made a world filled with good things. As such there are good things to be found. Our first strength is in looking for them, finding them, and aligning with them.

Our second strength is presented by Jesus. That is, we can offer to those we meet and know an alternative construction of events. To arrive at this we need the teacher: Jesus, and, we need wisdom and understanding. Wisdom and understanding to know that we need not be like the wailing, complaining psalmist praying for revenge and relief, seeing pain and almost reveling in it. The experience of every-day culture in the world. We can turn that off. We can do so by listening to Jesus and recognizing that we have the opportunity to see who and what is around us in new and better ways, and we can choose to see ourselves and our situation in a new light.

These new and better views are associated with choices: First, our own choice: Who do we say we are? A victim or a follower of Spirit? If we are victim, we can throw our lot in with today’s psalms and suffer. We can look for others with whom to share misery. And we shall drift away from God, from hope, from love, from charity.

In choosing to follow Spirit and the teachings of Jesus and others, we seek to understand parables and other teachings about God. We seek to see ourselves and our calling in these stories. And we understand we have the choice to love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves, and to seek to bring people to the Light.

To achieve this, we must cultivate a Light guided life, and we must develop practices that keep us on track. For made free and filled with emotions that distract us and distort our thoughts and perceptions, we need to learn, to change our ways from those of the culture to the practice of love and following teachings and the Light. We need to practice daily, on a routine stronger than our exercise routine.

We can make significant changes in how we view ourselves, the world around us, and how we behave. We can choose to behave not as the world around us does – spouting polarized declarations of emotion or stubbornly being silent – but with openness to the ways of God and the call that we experience to seek the Light and let it shine through us.  Your choice?  Your practices?

And so today 11/15/2024 –

How different is our world five years on? In one way, not at all – the themes of scripture, the themes in 2019, and the themes today are strong foundations of cultural life. Today, they are, shall we say: Amped up. Where are we? What do we believe is the answer? What do we practice and show in our own lives?

The practice of worship, study, reflection, write, aligning my behavior as best as I can – has transformed me. Perhaps one day, you and I can talk about that experience, and the horizons we see for the present and future. I am a Quaker in the west – and I am grateful, hopeful, and active. I hope you are too — Larry