Love
Fest
“...we
need to find a way of sharing our intimate experiences of the
Mystery, for we are one. It is through one another that we know more
of the Life that flows within us all. It is through sharing our
fragments of insight that we will come to a fuller picture of the One
who is at the heart of each life.”
John
Philip Newell
We've done a great deal
of sharing at the Awakening Soul conference. It has been a
consciousness-raising, soul-expanding experience. We've been fed body, mind and spirit. I've met many truly friendly, inviting intelligent and
delightful people—a high concentration of spirit-seekers and also,
presenters, musicians and staff, who have made everyone feel welcome,
celebrated and well-fed. This morning, we will have one more
experience with Barbara Brown Taylor, and then pack up and go home.
Reentry will feel like leaving heaven for, well...another, less
desirable, location.
So, now what? How do we
take the teachings and insights gained here into our everyday world?
What do we do with them once we're back in our ordinary lives, where
people are not talking about the Mystery, and Love, and Discernment?
Do you ever feel that way? You go off to a religious retreat, a
gathering of like-minded, high-minded folks. You get pumped up to go
out and change the world, and when you come back and start spouting
Love to friends and family, they look at you like you're possessed
with a demon. We've gotten the good-stuff here, but now we must figure out
what to do with it.
I have no good answers. I
keep playing with the idea of a “conversation group.” It's an
amorphous notion at this point, but I need, and I feel like others
need, a safe place to talk it out—whatever “it” is? We are
living in a time of rapid change, when our institutions and
environments are colliding and collapsing. We are fed ideas and
“facts” that are sketchy at best, and designed to manipulate us
at worst. We've gotten lazy about checking out the truth of things,
and when that happens we follow leaders who do not have our best
interests in mind. If we don't learn how to look within for our own
holy ground, we are vulnerable to such leadership. We make time for
spirits at a brewery, but rarely for Spirit in the world. We don't
ask ourselves the hard questions with regard to how our personal and
political interests affect the rest of the living world—because we
don't want to hear the answers.
I do believe that Love is
the answer. Not the Hallmark, “oh, there, there, baby, everything's
going to be all right” kind of love, but the “get up off your
soft cushion and go make it better” kind of love. This is not a
pink cloud of Dorothy's sleep-inducing poppies—this is the real
world that is desperately in need of attention. So, wake up! Go out
there and shake things up—lovingly, of course. Let's share ideas,
let's share a bite of bread, and let's talk about how hard Love
really is.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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