Love is always loving

Michael Safran
January 27, 2019

Good morning, friends!
Welcome to First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh!

I choose love.  “Love is always loving.”

I remember years ago when Tracy and I were searching for a religious community to join that matched our beliefs.  I was immediately struck by Unitarian Universalism and the seven principles. I believed then, as I believe now, that any human being walking upon this earth could agree with these principles.

Our seventh Principle, respect for the interdependent web of all existence, is a simple statement with vast ramifications.

According to—Rev. Forrest Gilmore, Executive Director of Shalom Community Center in Bloomington, Indiana:
“It is our Unitarian Universalist way of coming to fully embrace something greater than ourselves.
The interdependent web—expressed as the spirit of life, the ground of all being, the oneness of all existence, the community-forming power, the process of life, the creative force, even God—can help us develop that social understanding of ourselves that we and our culture so desperately need. It is a source of meaning to which we can dedicate our lives.”  
I have arrived at the uncomplicated choice of “there is something greater than ourselves.”  
Today as everyday, I begin each day by choosing love.  Experientially, I am moving from living in my world of thoughts toward being an open compassionate heart with arms wide open ready to hold a greater love than I could ever imagine. This connectedness underneath this interdependent web of existence is much like muscles underneath the skin.  This beingness in which all existence is supported."
I choose love.  Love is always loving.

Mark Nepo, a poet, describes this connection accurately in this poem:

"My soul tells me
we were all broken from the same nameless heart
and every living thing wakes with a piece of that original heart
aching its way into blossom.
This is why we know each other below our strangeness.
Why when we fall, we lift each other
or when in pain, we hold each other.
Why when sudden with joy, we dance together.
Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together.”

I choose love.  Love is always loving.

When we are capable of just being able to accept reality as it is...simply... living true vulnerability...we are free to participate in these blissful minutes.  

Another accurate description from Dewitt Jones, an American photographer:

"There are times in my life, sometimes  with a camera, sometimes without, when the world  is so achingly beautiful,
when everything holds such meaning,
that I am incapable of any expression except tears of joy.
The boundaries of my being begin to blur,
whatever separates one thing from another begins to dissolve,
and in that confluence of light and line and law,
lies an experience for which I have no words.
This experience is the exception not the rule,

yet it happens often enough that I no longer believe it to be just coincidence,
but rather a level of reality that is always there if I am open enough to see it.
This level of reality is incredibly positive.
It doesn't negate the pain and suffering  of the world,
but puts it into a larger context and allows me to experience this context directly,
not just with my intellect, but with my entire being."
I choose love.  Love is always loving.
If I am open…

if I am willing to see it…

If I am willing to focus...

For those who have read “Zen in the Art of Archery by the German philosophy professor Eugen Herrigel:

“The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him.
This state of unconscious is realized only when,
completely empty and rid of the self,
he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill...”

If I am willing to accept a much tinier reality that knows no bounds…


At the Quantum Mechanics level...

No separation.

I choose love. Love is always loving.

Can we train our minds to choose these extraordinary moments of life, more frequently?  

What hijacks our consciousness?

Our lives arise from the source...our intentions.
It is when we forget to pay attention to our intentions.
This is when we become distracted.

Henry David Thoreau once said,
“Many man go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

I may begin each day with “I choose Love.”  It is anybody’s guess if I end the day with that choice.  


Why is that so?

The psychoanalyst and Social philosopher Erich Fromm claimed that Human beings most basic fear
is the threat of being separated from other human beings.  

Does our fear of abandonment block our development toward a compassionate heart?
Or does our avoidance of grasping our fears stop us from being open to a larger presence?

Our minds are evolving from the Fight-Flight-freeze response attributed to our Reptilian - primitive mind.  

Does our amygdala and hippocampus function to divert us from a loving heart?

Our daily habituated agendas seemingly numb us into robotic trances.
We control our way through the day…
We must be right...
Trying to get others approval...
Get gratification from achieving our set goals…
Checking off our to do list…
Our reactivity to given circumstances...
Choosing perfectionism...
Meeting other people’s expectations…
Protecting ourselves from making mistakes…
Our judgements...
Making money...
Manipulating behaviours to basically get what we want...

Do our desires, wants, and needs sidetrack us from achieving this visceral connection?

I choose love.  Love is always loving.

Almost counterintuitively…
It is during the most challenging of times in our life…
The darkest hours of hardship…
In the throng of a separation from someone you love…
A diagnosis of cancer…
Not expecting being fired from your job...
Life hoists up it's hammer…
Bam!
Reshapes us…
Laid open upon the anvil...
Cracks us open…
Begins chipping away at the excesses…
We come undone...
Changes us in ways we never thought imaginable...
Life chips away at what we truly do not need in the moment...
It is at these junctures…
When we are most vulnerable…
That we must risk believing in something more than us…
Larger than us…
Greater than us...
Through our pain and our tears
We empty out ourselves…
Surrender...
We come to realize love…
A hole of light in the center of our being forces its’ way through…
Maybe another...maybe 4...
Maybe a door opens…
That leads us out…
Down the other side of the mountain…
We recognize that we are not just a wave…
We are in the deep vast ocean.

We are reduced to…
Release...
Peace...
Ease...
Love is always loving.  
This is no choice!

I spend a portion of my work day at PPS/Montessori elementary school
in conversation and relationship with children while coaxing them into the present moment.
Sometimes, a child might be lost in their thoughts firmly believing that they were wronged in some manner.
I let them know that just because it seems real doesn’t necessarily make it true.
Other times, a child will be swimming in a strong emotion unable to reason.
I sit with them and cajole them into taking deep breaths in order to bring them into the "now".
I say, my thoughts, my feelings, my choices...
We have choice to awaken into the present moment in every breath we take.

Recently, I shared this wonderful Cherokee story with a classroom to begin a meditation session before the start of their day.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is the wolf of hate – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is the wolf of love – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
(silence)

“we were all broken from the same nameless heart”

(pause)

“Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together.”

(pause)

vulnerable heart...


(pause)

We all want to be held and loved...


(pause)

Compassionate heart...


(pause)

What stops you?  


(silence)

Love is always loving.