The Christmas holiday commemorated the birth of Jesus the Christ. No matter what our spiritual or religious beliefs are, the stories of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and the evolving faiths have made a profound impact on our world. His presence emanated love and compassion wherever he went and whoever he touched. The desire to love and be loved is a healthy part of human nature. Giving and receiving love are as natural as breathing in and breathing out. Glenda Green writes in her book, Love Without End, “Love is your true self which springs forth from God, the indefinable, everlasting fountain of existence. The fictional self is who you thought you were when you forgot that you were love.” Every act that is not love is propelled by fear. Angry or mean-spirited people are fueled by fear. Our instinct is to react in kind, but in those moments we’re forgetting that they’re really asking for healing or help. When someone lashes out, let’s breathe deeply and then respond instead of reacting. Let’s choose to see our attackers as crying out for love. If we look at them through our lens of love, we’ll see their spirits within and not be pulled down into their lower consciousness.

Categorizing every conflict as either reflecting love or exposing fear will clarify how life works. Accepting responsibility for how we react shows us how we’re receiving the message. Slights from friends, criticism from loved ones, unreturned phone calls from colleagues are seen as loveless-ness. How can we grow more aware of love’s presence? Anything we experience from others that doesn’t feel like love is an opportunity to offer love in the form of forgiveness anyway. This may seem difficult at first, but the reward will strengthen our desire to continue this practice on a more regular basis and we’ll receive more love from others. Through out this New Year, let’s look for signs of love and express them whether we see them or not.

All barriers to stop the flow of God’s love are masterminded by the ego. Its sole purpose is to keep us agitated. When we inflict our agitation on others, we’re consumed by guilt. The pain stays stuck in our minds, but our minds can always change when we look at ourselves. When we receive the love that God promises and pass it on to others, we free ourselves from the ego’s attachment and its agitation. When we withhold love and affirmation from one person, we’re withholding it from ourselves and from everyone. Let’s release our agendas for others and surrender our control and opinions over what’s right for their growth by allowing them to script their own lives. Let’s decide to think more about love and monitor how we treat all people. Let’s listen with the ears of our hearts and be alert to the promptings of love. When we respond to the call for love, we’ll answer with faith and move forward in love. Divine guidance is acting within each of us. When we relax our rigid ideas of what love should look like, we’ll open to its infinite varieties.

This New Year let’s allow compassion to open our hearts and expand our boundaries to love others as they want to be loved, and allow ourselves to be loved as we want to be. Let’s give ourselves the gift of serenity and take some time to mentally and physically step away from all activity, quietly turning within to allow the Divine presence of love to receive our full attention. We’ll feel cradled and secure in God’s love through the perfection of our spirits within. As we give love, we feel love. As we seek love, we are loved.

Feel free to write to me at sandyislands@hawaii.rr.com and feel free to browse previous articles under publications at www.sandyislands.com.