You Were Made for Love. Now What?

The joy from Saturday night's A Cappella Palooza was palpable on Sunday morning. A packed house, talented voices, and a shared experience that makes the outside world take a backseat. A handful of us were back at the Center the next morning — most of them earlier than me — and that joy, that energy, was still in the house. Maybe it was the sunshine. Either way, the energy was electric.

A special shout-out to Guy Nelson and Juniper Rayne. They were the power team behind the event, who conjured something magical (with creative support from Bonnie and a team of volunteers), and then showed up that morning to fill us with music yet again — this time with Guy and Friends, singing songs about love.

They set the stage for Rev. Liz Mirante, our Sunday speaker.

Love Was In the Room

The glow from the night before, coupled with the Pride and planet earth flags hanging in our sanctuary, made me appreciate who we are, and who we continue to become, even more. June is Pride Month, and our inclusivity matters in a world that currently expresses itself as more divided.

Because we're all made of the same stuff, and that stuff is love.

Rev. Liz said, we're made for love. And, the world was never made worse by love.

Love Is Not Conditional

The core of Rev. Liz's talk: love isn't something that arrives when conditions are right. It's a force — Martin Luther King's word — and an active one. Ernest Holmes said it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find any situation that doesn't respond to love's creative and healing power.

In all its forms, love can transform us. I think the reason we find ourselves where we are — globally, nationally, in our own families sometimes — is because so many don't experience love, whether romantic, familial, or the divine way in which we know it.

Those of us who practice Religious Science know that we are made of love, that we are love, but too many people walking the planet don't know this. They weren't loved, or never felt loved, and don't understand that we are love. They don't know what it means to experience love as a practice or way of being. If they never felt love, how do they transcend that to be love?

Experiencing love as a practice sends that energy out into the world. A room full of people showing up on a Sunday morning, some of them still buzzing from the night before, is a force that expands outward and changes the energy field.

We Get to Choose

Practically speaking — and drawing a bit on my coaching background, though Rev. Liz said this too — we get to choose. We get to decide who we want to be and how we want to show up. That doesn't mean it's easy. It puts accountability squarely in our own laps.

Rev. Liz talked about the prickly people. Those who cross a boundary - a family member, a coworker, a friend. She gave an example of using every tool she knew to move through resentment to a more open space, not to pretend or agree, but to keep the door cracked open.

Can you stay present in the hard conversation? Can you keep something in you open, even when you don't have to? And when it feels like you can't — which happens, because we're human — can you then go back and ask what love might have looked like?

Pride: Made from Love. We are it and it is us.

Her phrase: Let your life be a living testament to the power that love is.

Plant your flag.

Flags are a visual symbol of what you stand for. Rainbow flags, earth flags, and so many more. The flags we fly to say: this is the world I choose to play a part in, that I actively create through my actions, thoughts, and beliefs.

Planting your flag, in its essence, is being a light for others. It isn't about being seen. It's about people seeing their own light reflected back. Rev. Liz was right on: we don't shine so everyone sees how cool we are. We shine so others remember that about themselves.

A Few Ways to Do This

Rev. Liz offered several practices, and if you missed them, I'll summarize here (you can also watch the full service on our YouTube channel):

• Deep listening. Try one conversation a week where you're fully present. Not composing your response and not waiting for your turn. Just present. Notice what changes.

• Find the one thing. In the relationships that feel impossible, look for even the smallest thing you can genuinely appreciate. It doesn't fix anything. It keeps contempt from calcifying.

• Genuine affirmation. Tell someone something true. Not flattery, but something you actually see in them. Rev. Liz told a stranger outside a theater in Ashland that she loved what she was wearing. The woman hugged her and cried. She'd had a terrible day and no one had said anything kind to her.

• Ask yourself: How could love grow me here? Not shrink me, nor require me to tolerate what's harmful. Help me grow and become a better version of myself.

These aren't spiritual bypasses. They're ways to stay present to what's real, to keep the weight of everything from becoming the whole story. In this philosophy, love is another word for spirit, for the universe, for the divine, for the thing itself. Whatever you call it, it's transformative. Simple, but not easy. It's about staying present to it.

Rev. Liz reminded us: we were made for it. Even on the hard weeks.

Especially the hard weeks.

With gratitude,

Laura