In the last episode, we talked about Love with the Big L and how it transcends all our Hollywood/Hallmark/humanly-flawed ideas about love. . .and yet, how we all keep losing that thread of with the Big L.
Certainly, I have spent a lot of my life looking for love — forgetting that I have Love with the Big L all around me — and all the while loving not too wisely nor too well.
In fact, for a long time, I felt that loving was what I had done the worst. (Though not for lack of trying!) Yet, paradoxically, even as I failed again and again at my human agenda of loving and being loved, deep down I always believed in the power of Love with the Big L. This is because, as a child, I went to a Sunday School which had the words God is Love (with the Big L) painted on the wall. That was always incredibly comforting. I didn’t think of God as scary or punishing — an all-powerful, judging old man with a long white beard, because I learned some simple math. God is Love and God is All, so Love is All.
As a little girl, I believed Love could heal anything, and I saw it happen. I witnessed the healing power of Love in my own life and in the lives of others. I felt that Love. I lived in that Love back then.
But the world’s messages can beat down on you. Pretty soon, the Santa Claus- naughty or nice idea of God began seeping into my consciousness. As it did, I started to lose the thread of the Allness of Love. Which meant that, as I grew up, the translation of All Love into my own life began feeling flawed.
Yet I never stopped believing that the Field of Love existed. It just seemed like I had been condemned to spend my life trying and failing to find my way there.
Looking back, I realize that the issue was that I was prioritizing the human over the Divine. What do I mean by that?
My mother was someone who used a lot of old-fashioned expressions. I didn’t always know what they literally meant. For example, she used to say, “Don’t overegg the pudding.” To this day, I don’t know what putting too many eggs in a pudding does, because I don’t make puddings. I had no clue they were even made with eggs. But I did know what it meant to my mother. Too much of a good thing isn’t always the best idea. Less really is sometimes more, so don’t get overager or greedy.
One of my mom’s other old-fashioned expressions was also pudding-related. “The proof is in the pudding.” To her, that meant — you can talk a good game about having or making the best desserts, but none of that matters. It’s all about how the pudding actually tastes. O
Recently, I came to understand that my mother had a proof-is-in-the-pudding view of spiritual practice. Meaning anyone can talk a good game about being a spiritual person, but the quality of their human life is what matters.
That’s a good thing, mostly.
Except that sometimes, my mother thought her successes were proof of her spiritual worthiness. And this is a slippery slope, because when you start to look for your human life to affirm your divinity — and by divinity, I mean your inherent loveliness, loveability, that you are always the loved of Love — then, when you slam up against something hard, you take that as proof that you’re not really lovely or lovable or worthy of love at all.
Soon you’re more focused on improving or fixing or bemoaning your human experience than you are on getting back to the simple truth you understood as a kid — Love is All. All around you, inside you. Love is you!
I kept trying and trying to have the love in my life prove my own loveability. Instead of trying to love more, be more lovING.
Then I hit a bottom—a place that was about as low as I could go; a place from which I believed never would learn to love myself, love anyone else, love my life, do anything lovable. I had been alive for almost five decades, and I felt as though I had never shown up to my own life, let alone ever really loved. I vowed to myself to change.
But every time I made a little progress, I hit that same bottom again. And again. And again. Until, finally, just like Oliver, hopeless and alone in the dark basement, I cried out: “Where is Love?” When I felt that deep longing for Love with every fiber of my being, I finally turned to Love with my whole heart. Only then was I finally able to listen to what Love wanted me to hear.
And did I ever hear it! Loud and clear.
Now when I say “loud and clear,” I don’t mean it in some Charlton-Heston-as-God- speaking-from-the-sky kind of way. There was no burning bush either. Though I would be less than honest if I did not admit to having hoped for some kind of sign like that over the years: telling me what to do with my life and how to do it. No. I heard it in my heart, which is what usually happens when I really know what I need to do.
It goes like this: when an idea comes from Love, I feel it before I can articulate it. Next come the words, like the translation of that idea into clear directions. Then—and this is the kicker—the whole thing clicks into place in my heart like a gear settling into position or a combination lock hitting its final number. When that happens, I feel a sense of immense peace and everything inside me eases. That is how I always know that I am listening to Love.
That is exactly what happened. After years of trying to change my life, I felt the absolute peace of knowing what to do.
There was only one small problem: I didn’t know *how* to do it.
Still . . . if I was desperate enough to listen, I was desperate enough to try.
What came to me was this: *create a daily practice of joy.*
But what did that even mean? I had no earthly idea! I just knew I had to find out.
That journey of finding out ended up changing my life by showing me the power of heart-centered practice.
I can’t wait to share the start of that journey with you over the next couple of episodes.
But today, I want to get back to something I said at the beginning. That we all keep losing the thread of Love with the Big L.
That’s why I’m going to end today’s episode with a short poem by one of my favorite poets: William Stafford.
This is the poem.
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
I love this poem so much because it’s the reminder that we all need. The only thing that matters in life is to never let go of the thread. Whatever the thread it is that you follow, you will know it because it is heart-based. The Thread of Love with the Big L.
You will feel that click in your heart I described earlier, when you’re doing something you love. Gardening or walking or playing with your grandkids or pets, cooking or taking a long drive or writing or going to the Farmers Market. Pay attention to that click. It will always lead you to the Thread of Love.
Rest assured, however, you will continue to get persuaded that you can’t follow the Thread because you have bills to pay or a family to raise or you’ve grown up or the world is going to hell in a handbasket and who has time for love or joy. BS!
Keep listening for the click and let The Thread lead you back to Love. The Thread never goes away. It’s in your heart — and your heart never lies. You just have to remember how to keep listening to it. . .
And that, in a nutshell, is what heart-centered practice is. . .
So, this week, I’d like to suggest a little mini-practice.
Write down what you loved as a kid and why.
Then, as you go through your week, try to remember that feeling.
Invite that feeling into your heart — and then listen for an idea:
“I’d like to go to the Farmers Market this weekend.”
“I want to watch an old episode of I Love Lucy or Friends or Sex and the City or The Carol Burnett Show or SNL.” (Hint: Laughter almost always leads us back to The Thread.)
“I’m going to pick up the phone and call my sister, my high school friend, my neighbor. . .”
“Why don’t we ever take a Sunday drive anymore?”
“I read about a nearby town that looks like a fun place to visit.”
And then — and this is the kicker — DO IT!
That’s it.
That’s how we begin to Remember the Thread.