Worship Materials: Human Relationships, Beginnings
From the Celebrating Mystery collection
THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION
- Romance is only healthy within the context of our love for life, for the mystery, for the divine. Without it romance will be a vain pursuit of a total oneness which it cannot provide.
- When I stop looking for perfection, I can delight in what is.
- Look in the mirror and you see yourself. Look into your heart and you see your neighbor (your lover).
- Love is a form of entrainment where two oscillating systems come into phase i.e. are ‘on the same wave length.’
- Marriages are not made in Heaven but love is the doorway into Heaven.
- Infatuation is the illusion that two people completely become one. Love is the bridge that links two people’s solitude without destroying their separate identities.
- I met your mystery before I met your information.
- The illusion that there is only one person that could possibly be one’s partner is a denial of the complexity of the human psyche.
- Dependent love is a contradiction in terms. It may be dependency, or co-dependency but never the fullness of love, for love does not seek to possess or to manipulate.
- If love only has one focus, then it becomes transformed into possessiveness for love is the intimate dialogue between the many and the one.
- Love is not a cold exchange of ideas, but a firing by two people of each other’s passion for life: where there is no passion, love dies.
- The desire to possess is the enemy of all true love.
- Touch my hands and I meet your spirit. Touch my lips and I share your mystery.
- The mystery of the meeting is but part of description-less divinity and the knowing and unknowing two polarities equally contributing to relationship.
- God is the process of evolving connectedness i.e. love.
- Love for other people seldom occurs at any depth or with any lasting quality unless we first respect, enjoy and yes love being ourselves.
- Love comes in many guises but they all come from and to a greater or lesser degree all reflect God, the model for all our loving.
HYMNS
In the wonder of love. (BL)
Is love a grand illusion. (BL)
Not in grasping or in holding. (BL)
We sing of human loving’s starting point. (BL)
All will be well.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/whakapono/online-resources/hymns/the-mystery-telling
Rise O my heart.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/whakapono/online-resources/hymns/the-mystery-telling
Between our thoughts.
http://www.methodist.org.nz/whakapono/online-resources/hymns/the-mystery-telling
In the wonder found in loving.
Singing the Sacred Vol 1 2011 World Library Publications
PRAYER
MY PRAYER
May our love be
as deep as the ocean,
as expansive as space,
as tender as the sunrise,
as passionate as the sunset,
as whole as the circle,
as wonderfilled as the mystery.
May it flower as a thousand orchids,
wrapped in sparkling gossamer,
and may it reflect the splendor of divinity
as the dewdrops prism the
technicolor sun.
This is my prayer, my love,
may it be so.
POEMS / REFLECTIONS
FRIENDSHIP
Like two tributaries
rushing and tumbling
from differing origins
to unexpected confluence
we create
calm meandering waters
where silted flats
originate fresh life
and lovers
hiding in the long grass
tease each other
with heaven-sent
humor.
CONNECTION
In the space of connection
between two previously
distanced worlds
and vastly divergent stories
a moment of miraculous meeting occurred!
Then the doors of heaven rolled back
and the oneness of all living
became visibly incarnate
in the one whose eyes
smiled with
the twinkle of
divinity.
AT THE BEGINNING
Like our relationship
the luminous rays of the moon
shone from behind
the jet black cloud
and I had no way of knowing
whether they would diminish
or flower into
overwhelming brightness.
So I put to one side
all the whys and why nots,
all the hows and wherefores
and simply allowed myself
to be immersed
in the wonder and whiteness
the darkness and mystery
of that moment
of awesomeness.
I shall no longer query our relationship
but rather delight
in its reality,
not detracting from its grandeur
by succumbing to past calculations
or hope’s ambiguous messages
but instead
let wonder
work its charm
in stillness
for therein lies
the essence
of love and life.
RELATIONSHIP
LOVE is seeing beauty amidst ugliness,
discovering miracles amongst the mundane,
pursuing justice when injustice prevails,
keeping your heart tender in the face of rejection,
offering forgiveness to those who have wronged you.
LOVE is determination to make improbable dreams come true,
seeking to hold together the disparate elements of life,
finding one’s identity in the lives of others,
serving others beyond the limits of
reasonableness, obligation or deserving.
LOVE is the nonsense of the heart that gives
meaning to all that is sensible, practical,
logical and scientific.
KNOWN
You and I only know what Heaven
of flesh and blood,
of intertwining bodies and coupled lips
our togetherness brought,
but there was more.
There was two dispirit spirits
cautiously exploring possibilities of union,
dancing hand in hand
down the walkway of the reservoir
of our soul’s infinity.
There was the tenderness
such as neither had experienced before,
the softness and caring,
the enfolding and nurturing
of the fetal depths
of each other’s spirit.
LATE LOVE
Before my sunset
I will love you with the tenderness of the dawn
the passion of the noontide
and the quietude of the cool
of the evening.
FOCUS FOR ACTION
- Love and friendship need nurturing. Would it be possible to regularly set aside time to share with my partner and/or best friend(s) those things which I like best about them? Could we jointly devise some ceremony that regularly celebrated our relationship?
- How can I become more open to compromise, more liberated from my desire to control and also to change my dependency into inter-dependency?
LOGO NOTE: At the heart of the mystery all the separate boxes disappear and all is one, all is love.
Text and graphic © William Livingstone Wallace but available for free use.