Hi All, I am merging week One and Week Two topics this time because the author interview posted last week came through unexpectedly, and I was asked to share that.
This past month has brought difficult news about two of my good friends who are facing very difficult health conditions. Both are facing their conditions with strength and some degree of appropriate humor, but they are facing the impending mortality of their physical bodies and the mysterious transition of spirit which that entails. As I ask myself what should my monthly contemplation question be for April, I hold my friends dearly in my heart as I ask, “What Is (the Value of) Love?” or maybe more specifically, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” Because Love seems to be what matters most in dealing with issues of life and transition.
When I was in high school in the turbulent early 1970’s, my father once grounded me because he said I “do not know what love is.” We were at a restaurant with the family for a Sunday brunch. Dad made some negative comment about the Beatles, especially John Lennon. I said boldly,
“All they are singing about is Love!”
For this Dad grounded me for a month, to think more deeply about the true meaning of love (to be generous with his motivation; actually he just didn’t like for anyone to challenge or contradict him in public). But I have never forgotten this experience and have often asked myself, at every new stage or transition of my life:
“Do I truly know what Love Is? What Is Love, Really?”
This means, for me: why is love so important; am I truly capable of love or of being loved; and what does/ how can love matter, for I sense it is the most important state of consciousness one can have/ develop/ give/ receive/ share. I have come to believe that “Love is All!;” that at the base of any vital experience IS Love, a fountainhead of grateful bounty and blessings, the foundation of a true harmonious connection with another being or with nature or with our own higher Self, Spirit, and Divinity Itself; or else, the apparent lack of love, an emotional or spiritual vacuum.
In all, my best understanding so far is simple:
Love Matters.
So this shall be my personal growth question for this month, about how love matters and how the fact of Love, as an unconditional spiritual force, matters to the continuation and transformations of Life. I am reminded at the start of one of my favorite songs ever, about Love. It happens to be by the Beatles. (You may Click here to listen.)
In My Life
(by Paul McCartney, John Lennon)
There are places I’ll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more
In my life– I love you more
What is YOUR question for the month of April? I invite you to set your focus question as a contemplation seed for personal growth.
I welcome YOUR Story and Comments!
Better Endings 