Where's Your Center?

Each of us needs a CENTER, a home for the heart, a virtual place where we can go to regroup. I find that I need my place of peace most often when I've been exposed to the pain of this life, whether my own or someone else's - someone that I care about. There is so much imperfection, so much undesirable and distasteful about this world and this life. Most people seem numb to it - I am not. I refuse to allow the numbness to settle in for fear I might get comfortable with it. Been there, done that -but it's no way to live. We take on some of the suffering of others, share in their misery for the sake of empathy and love, and then return to our center. Where is yours?

Our Lord made it clear that there are only two directives for living a Godly life - Love God and Love People. We are to devote the majority of our time and energy to building and maintaining a relationship with the Almighty - learning, praying, meditating, knowing, submitting, surrendering. From that perspective and place of grace, we are moved to love those around us - those that God has brought into our lives and given us to love. This, of course, starts with our immediate family. We then reach out to love our extended families. Following that, our friends and spiritual comrades, coworkers and associates. After that, everyone else. There is no stopping the love of God that flows through us when we are in communion with Him.

This, then is the CENTER of all being - LOVE. The love that is found in an intimate relationship with an unlimited God who limits Himself to know me drives and motivates and pushes me to let Him love others through my interactions with them. It's not about me, it's about HIM and HIS love. It's not about what I GET out of these relationships but what I GIVE to them.

Once I was in the midst of a counseling session when the counselor said to me, "You know, it's all about relationships. All of life is about our relationships and they are all that matters." At the time I recall thinking, "OH, NO - Don't tell me that - I am no good at relationships!" Well, it seems that I've grown a bit since then, because when I'm thrown off of my game by pain and suffering, hurting for those that I love dearly and wishing I could somehow make it better, I return to my center and realize that it is the very heart of relating that I find there. The love that soothes, heals, understands, energizes, motivates, and overflows IS that which brings me peace.

I pray that you have this same center, and that we meet there more often than not.

Over Water

We skim the southern waters,
Green as polished opal
In sunlight brazen,
Wanting not for speed,
Air buffeting tinted skin,
Like flying without ascent,
Sailing without mast or canvas,
Following in the wake
Of many vessels past,
In pursuit of traversing
The world below.