We need on ramps to love. Sometimes love is flowing and sometimes not. We find some people hard to love. When we’re in a hurry, any tendency to spiritual blindness increases. And how many of us have learned to step aside from the hurry in the face of all the crisis aspects of modern life?
To love divinely is an achievement. How many of us spontaneously wake up loving and go through the day effectively motivated by love? The law of love is a revelation of how the spirit world operates under the leadership of our heavenly Father. Love is patient. (Do we ever wish, in effect, that God would interfere with the freedom of some of his children who do atrocious things?)
I grew up with the command to love God and the neighbor. It wasn’t a stern commandment with a furrowed brow and a threat behind it. It was simply a teaching, a very prominent teaching. Sometimes I loved, sometimes not. But I felt the force of the duty to an extent that partially impeded my ability to experience love’s spontaneity. I needed an on ramp to love.
Later I found one. I discovered that when love is not flowing, we can’t manufacture it. But we don’t need to, because it’s already there inside. We just have to go within to the Father’s spirit source of love and wait . . . in faith and expectation . . . as long as it takes.
Growing more, I began to discover more on ramps in passages that inspired me with sequences that I could learn to follow, which culminated in love. For example, suppose we’re having difficulties in a group, a conflict between your personal ideals and what dominant others are obliging us to do. Sometimes we stand up for our own convictions; at other times we go along with fairly reasonable demands; on other occasions we work out a compromise. And through it all, we grow. We gradually develop loyalty, fairness, tolerance, and love. I have found that this sequence to be helpful to me as an on ramp. It supports us in our loyalty to our highest convictions, while obliging us to be fair in our assessment of other people. And sometimes we have to put up with things that are not our first choice—we have to bear them, which is what the etymology of the word tolerance implies. By the time that we’ve remembered the three preliminary virtues, it becomes a whole lot easier to love.
I will mention one more: truth, beauty, and goodness is a major on ramp. That’s the integrating, culminating conclusion of my new book, Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
What I like best about the lovely photograph that I found to symbolize any effective on ramp to love is that the ramp itself is beautiful and flowing, just like the highway to which one is seeking access.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_(road)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interchange-colour-img_0526.jpg
Ramps of love reaching out to everyone– we must be lights for each other, which includes smiling and kindnesses. If we do not reach an agreement on something, then sometimes we must compromise.. talking, listening, understanding. We must “work” together, for we are many in One. We are all sons and daughters of Our Heavenly Father; we are family– The Mystical Body of Christ! To insist on having one’s way about smaller issues is to be selfish. True and larger issues which involve Humankind are not to be compromised. Jesus is King,and the head of all the family, for The Father has given all to His Only Begotten Son. Jesus’ words teach all of us to live in the Light of Truth. Jesus’ death freed us from the darkness of lies and deception. The Blood of The Lamb, Jesus’ Blood, covers Humankind. Jesus died for all. We must bring light and truth to our brothers and sisters; we do this by meeting together and must be free and open to our hearts to others not in our group. Many times a smile returns a smile. We must not be afraid to go out and meet others, especially, those searching for greater meaning in their lives. Sometimes, we can slightly open the door of truth to people, to have them be more receptive to others who come later.
Paula, when I think of the sacred heart of Jesus, it is easy to recall your heart of love, so saturated with his love. Knowing something of your struggles and your ways of blessing others, I give thanks for having met you and stayed in touch since the 1990s. We do not need to have theological uniformity in order to enjoy spiritual unity.
How do we access the highway of divine love? The ramps of truth, beauty, and goodness when in embraced by faith allows us to access the highway of divine love nicely with safety. But I think that there are times in our journey along this highway of love when we have been sidetracked off onto the byways. We are sometimes alarmed when we sometimes have such unlovely reactions to our brothers and sisters.
We are all growing spiritual children and it is not strange that we don’t always live us to our divine ideals. But we can be true to our desire to live up to them. We can acknowledge that we have fallen short and would like to do better. We can make an sincere attempt to understand the brother or sister that is causing us to have such a negative reaction to them. Prayer and worship will yield that insight and growth that will allow us to get back on the highway of divine love.
Dr. Perry