What can love do today?

Have you ever considered that what you care about dramatically effects what you see and experience?  I have a relative I would like to have a better relationship with.  We are distant, both a bit geographically, and certainly in time spent together when one or the other of us is not rushing on to the next thing, or recounting the past thing.  This creates, for me, an emptiness in the relationship. 

What I care about influences how I think about, experience, and approach this relationship.  If my caring is about me, then I go to feeling hurt and wondering why this person does not care more, does not try to make a little more time, does not make a little more effort to open up space for us.  My hurt can grow.  I can feel a bit angry, used, and disappointed.

If I care about them, I see them in a new light – the very full, useful, busy life they have, already chock-a-block full of people and activities.  They do well to carve out any time to spend with me.  And if their focus is on their concerns, who can blame them?  Their life is full of pretty important stuff.  Now I have a feeling of gratitude. Gratitude for them and any opportunities we can make happen.

If I care about them, I can pause and seek the Light.  People in Quaker communities are at some point exposed to a couple of points considered true.  Consider these and see how they are for you:

• Each of us has a bit of God, or spirit, or the eternal or transcendent good within us.
• Quakers refer to Spirit, and perhaps some to God – as being the source, the giver of the gift of Light.
• The Light holds truths for us that are bigger than our daily concerns, bigger and more important that we ourselves, and if we will seek the Light, we will recognize this and have the opportunity to alter our ways accordingly.
• Quaker testimonies are replete with examples of people recognizing this point and then dramatically altering their course in life, their ways of being, and life goes better – not just for them but for others with whom they are involved. 

If I care about what is described as the Light (above), then it follows that I care about others, I care about seeing them not as someone to meet my needs, but as a beautiful creature with a bit God within.  I care to seek that Light in them and to celebrate it in some way – at least, give them (and myself) grace when we are in a rough patch. 

What we care about is at the heart of the 9^th chapter of the good news book named John (click to read it here).  Jesus of Nazareth has chosen to see a poor, bedraggled blind man as a creature of God, like the rest of us, and chooses to give him a great gift – grace and healing.  This fundamentally changes the man’s life for the better.

The response of many?  Who did this?  Why is this person doing good we are not doing?  What are the motives (when they should be asking:  What are our own motives for reacting to this healing in this way?)?

Get it?  What we care about dramatically affects what we see. That in turn dramatically affects how we behave.  If we want a peaceful world, if we want a world with more love, tolerance and collaborative effort to seek and bring about good – then see what is around you as the makings of opportunity – and not as signs of angst-inducing difference. 

It is a choice.  We make it.  Do we care about the Light?  Do we want more love, grace and light in our world? If so, settle down for a bit and contemplate this, and as you do, gradually shift to listening to that still small voice within – the Light – and follow – with action. It is not our intentions that count, it is what we do.  Light Cares.