Category: Love

Faith, HOPE, love

3/18/2019

The other day a friend told me he had little hope. In reflecting on our conversation, I realize that he has more hope for world peace than for his own inner peace. He works for justice and peace, but he can’t let go the wrongs that happened to him as a child.
     Faith, hope, and love. He is stuck on hope, the middle one, which is more active and comprehensible than faith. Can we have hope without faith? Probably not, because without faith, hope just floats about as a capricious whim.
    Love is the easiest to grasp. I love my family, my home, and my upcoming trip to Italy. But love without faith is also capricious, depending on how other people, material possessions, and situations effect me at a given moment. It is easy to grasp moments of hope and love when things are going well. But what about those times of distress, when they are overpowered by despair and fear?
    I want to tell my friend that if he pursues faith, hope and unconditional love will follow. But I can’t tell him how, other than to suggest what I and others have found helpful. The best I can do is listen to him and pray for him. Pray for God’s light and peace to shine on, through, and with him, whatever that might mean to him. I don’t know the details of his situation; in fact they can get in the way of my prayer. Let go, let God, is enough.

Send love!

12/2/2018

I’m back in Florence, walking around with God. My commitment to this is strong, which means that I am remembering more often to feel God’s presence, not just when I visit a church or walk the streets, but as I encounter people living their lives and expressing joys and concerns.
     My purpose simple: live only in, by, through, and with love. This means no judgments, other than to notice that someone is expressing joy or concern. If I observe joy, I express gratitude. If I observe what appears as sadness or anger, I send God’s peace.
    Case in point! A bit ago, a boy (age eight ?) sat down in this café with his parents and grandmother. He appeared distressed and started pouting and crying. He was not happy, nor were the adults happy with him. I need not analyze or explain the situation further.
     My prayer challenge is simple: send love. Further judgments on my part diminish the power of prayer.

Power of love~

10/11/2018

Richard Rohr offers the words of The Cloud of Unknowing in his meditation today.cac.org/sign-up/

     Look. Every rational creature, every person, and every angel has two main strengths: the power to know and the power to love. God made both of these, but [God is] not knowable through the first one. To the power of love, however, [God] is entirely known, because a loving soul is open to receive God’s abundance. . . . [God’s] very nature makes love endless and miraculous. God will never stop loving us. Consider this truth, and, if by grace you can make love your own, do. For the experience is eternal joy; its absence is unending suffering.

     I long always to say ‘Yes’ to this message of love but I fail whenever I feel justified in placing restrictions on that love. “I will love everyone except ______, because, after all, I know he/she is really bad.”
    And yet I know better. Jesus’ message is to love unconditionally. The Gospels are replete with him telling us to love everyone, even our enemies. Hard to do, and yet the message that God shows no partiality, shows me how radical God is requiring me to be. Jesus definitely turns the world upside down with this one. Unless I return to the love idea I tell myself, I can’t do it. But, wait, I can do it, one moment, one situation,, one person at a time. When I do, I experience the Cloud’s invitation to eternal joy.

Faithful America

8/4/2018

I receive emails from “Faithful America”, www.faithfulamerica.org and organization committed to give voice to Christian love in the political arena; to voice inclusivity, to speak loud and clear that God loves EVERYONE, to proclaim Jesus’ message of love not fear not. It speaks a liberal point of view to counter a conservative message.
As a Christian, I am grateful for this voice out there on the internet: to feed the poor, speak kindly, not with anger, don’t laugh at people, honor the due process in our land of law (don’t say ‘lock her up’).
We Christians must do our prayerful best to stay positive and loving in the current political climate. It is always a challenge but because we know and believe that we are not our own savior, we have an inkling of a chance to show a different way of living and being in the world.

Here’s the latest post.
Dear Faithful America member,
Criminal indictments and headline news have revealed that the National Prayer Breakfast is an "international influence-peddling bazaar." What masquerades as a religious event has long been chock full of lobbyists representing foreign dictators and oligarchs looking for a chance to rub elbows with U.S. leaders.
Maria Butina, an alleged Russian intelligence operative, has been charged with criminal conspiracy for collaborating with National Prayer Breakfast organizers in 2016 and 2017 in order to establish a back channel of communication between Russian and American officials.
From its inception, the breakfast has been organized by a secretive network of conservative Christian leaders known as “the Fellowship” or “the Family,” who admire Jesus as a “strongman” and extol “totalitarianism for Christ.” The event’s official legitimacy comes not from any church or denomination, but from the bipartisan members of Congress who chair it each year.
Senators Chris Coons (D-Delaware) and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) are next year's chairs. Now that the National Prayer Breakfast has been exposed for what it is, they must resign.

The Upper Room's Thought for the Day

7/29/2017

     Here is today’s Thought for the Day offered in The Upper Room, (www.upperroom.org) a daily devotional written and read by people around the world: “How can I share God’s unconditional love with others?”
     This idea of sharing God’s unconditional love brought me up short. After all, I don’t talk about God with others. And yet, isn’t that one of the guiding principles of the Christian faith? To show God’s love?
       Any sermonizing or pontificating on my part would turn people away, but being positive shows love, and love is from God. Positive comments are just that; they don’t include any ‘buts’ so just eliminate them. Here are a few.
* What a lovely day (but it is too humid).
* I love chicken cooked on the grill (but it needs constant attention).
* The Red Sox are leading the league (but they aren’t hitting consistently).
         I’m not suggesting we never include these buts in our conversations, but not when we want to spread God’s unconditional love.

Trinity of love~

3/24/2017

Let me explain the photos on the slideshow accompanying this post. They are of people I passed on the street, people to whom I sent out loving kindness, which Pema Chordron explains as the Buddhist’ practice of Maitri.
This same principle applies to us as Christians; love begets love, and we reap what we sow. Jesus’ teaching can be distilled into one guiding principle, love: love God, love yourself, love others. It’s a trinity of love. They all go together. I believe that prayer can change the world. My small part might just be to think positive (i.e. loving) thoughts and send loving kindness out into my universe, which for the next twelve days includes the streets of Florence.

"Who am I to judge?"

2/27/2017

As you know, I’ve been staying away from politics. Why? because I am called to lead my life as a Christian, and being upset and angry keeps me away from even thinking in terms of love, forgiveness and redemption.
I pray for our president and our leaders. I pray that they will be kind and loving to all; that they will have compassion for all people: the Muslim, the Jew, the Christian, the agnostic, the atheist; the Hispanic, the Black, the Caucasian; the gay, the lesbian, the transgender, the straight.
     I believe that we are all wonderfully and perfectly made just as we are and that Christ calls us to love everyone. I believe that we are to show that love through thought, word and deed. As Pope Francis recently said, “Who am I to judge?”
     I try not to judge President Trump but I hear his words. I pray that his heart will open to ALL people. We reap what we sow, and I am doing what I can to sow love.
     “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). If God asks this of me, he surely asks it of our leaders.

Listening to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2/8/2017

     I’ll write some more about this soon. Right now I’m grappling with how, as a Christian, I can spread Christ’s message of love and work for the furthering of God’s kingdom on earth.
The following is also on my cottage-by-the-sea blog.

     Whenever I am asked if I miss going to my cottage-by-the-sea, I say, “Yes, I miss it; it was a special time, but a not-forever-time. My home routine is right.”
When I spent those four or five days in the middle of the winter weeks at the cottage I felt calm, centered, and in the moment. Internet access was weak and unreliable, I ate sparingly and intentionally, I never had a glass of wine, I walked every day, I did jigsaw puzzles, I read, prayed, and watched the sunrise even when it was too cloudy to see, I talked to no one, and I never watched TV or listened to the news or read a newspaper.
     Now that I am home, some of those routines have remained—the walking, reading, praying, jigsaw puzzle, no wine, the eating. I talk more, but I lead a quite life. I am on the internet more, although recently I have chosen to check Face Book only twice a day.
     However, even with so much cottage behavior that has become part of my routine, lately I have felt the return of the cottage presence in my life. What is the common denominator? It has to be no TV no news, which gave me peace and time to stay centered at the cottage, and now gives me peace and time to stay centered at home.

P.S. I wrote this post a few days ago. Alas, I wish it stood as is, but after the DeVos vote and the sanction of my senator, Elizabeth Warren, I cannot return to the cottage. As a Christian, I cannot erase Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The Confession Church in Nazi Germany from my mind and heart.

Prayer march

1/12/2017

Dear Prayer Friends,
On January 21st I will be participating in the Women’s March on Washington with my daughter, sister (who lives near DC), and other family members. I am not going to protest but to support the rights of all human beings. My energy is positive and prayerful.

I have begun a list of family, friends and friends of friends who can’t make the trip but who want to be there in spirit. I will keep the list close to my heart, at least for the start, but I may leave it somewhere along the way—in another marcher’s hand, at a designated memorial spot, on Lincoln’s lap. I may release it to the wind or bring it home with me. I’m open for surprises and miracles.

If you would like me to add your name, or the name of someone else to the list, please let me know.

Peace and love,
Bobbi

Faith, hope and love in Florence~

12/6/2016

Here I am, very grateful to be in warm and sunny Florence, among fewer tourists and less traffic that during other visits. The decorations in the city are all about Christmas. Preparations are being made to light the tree in front of Santa Maria dei Fiori on the 8th. What better day than on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception! A friend of mine and her husband know of a little out-of-the-way wine bar where we will watch and celebrate.
I am thinking a lot about Mary these days. I don’t have to believe in any literate understanding of an immaculate conception in order to strive for what Mary represents as bearing of God’s good, the Christ. Her acceptance symbolizes the faith, hope and love as the way to God’s kingdom on earth. Celebrating helps us renew our commitment.