Summer of LOVE

This has been the summer of LOVE with four weddings. The last, in LA, we regret we will not attend. The three in which we have participated were each a breath of fresh air, incorporating the uniqueness of the couple with a practical sensibility of aptly entertaining guests in simpler, more meaningful ways.

Sunday, we were in the woods for the ceremony, the rain spattering then holding off until we were all safely tucked into the big, beautiful barn before the torrential downpour. This wedding was truly about community. Neighbors actually grew wildflowers from seed that adorned the tables and ceremony arch and a core crew assembled the stunning arrangements. Favors were woven friendship bracelets reading abiding love crafted by Phillipino women working themselves out of prostitution. The bride had participated in the World Race journeying to 11 countries in 11 months as a missionary among the most marginalized people. That’s where she served the women weavers.

Like the event we attended two weeks earlier, this too was centered on a farm. The message seems to be back to the roots, making these ceremonies grounded, earthy and very inviting.

And then this young couple pushed the envelope a bit farther (than half their guests being children and another chunk beautifully multi-cultural). They asked us to watch a video that really was a sermon. They described it as the theme of the wedding, matching the abiding-love favors. Far from the quiet simplicity of my Quaker Meeting, I was reading text and listening to booming voices on a video monitor. It’s not my style and yet I was compelled to listen because I know the bride and this must be important.

The gist of the message was that God doesn’t match us with perfect partners in marriage for a very specific reason: we learn God’s unconditional love when we are forced to forgive the other’s imperfections. This WAS big news. I have learned that you don’t marry intending to change the other, but had not considered how we are moved toward pure love when challenged. Of course it’s easy to have unconditional love for your children (even if you may not like their behavior in the moment), but it’s much more of a journey to love your spouse despite their fault and deficiencies. Let alone how they have to live and love with yours.

As I mulled over the message on the drive home, forgiveness as part of that process of living into unconditional love arose. It may have been a remnant of the day before when I attended a metaphysical retreat on opening your heart via Taraka yoga. I had no idea what I was signing up for, just went because it spoke deeply to me.

The gentle facilitator suggested metaphysics is the joining of mind and spirit and took us on a journey of 13 steps, where we reflected on our most recent seven-year cycle. Thos steps included some interesting assignments. The first was a half hour of free writing about love in your life in those seven years. Used to journaling, my pen flowed freely to the point of tiring my hand. We had a break, then came back and listed 100 attributes of love. As I rendered more, others labored to get to 100. I believe regular journaling keeps me open to these activities.

In three different exercises, we were asked to look at our first, stream-of-consciousness writing and identify a place where we could forgive someone, a place we could ask for forgiveness and where we felt love had been denied. We wrote a letter granting forgiveness, then symbolically burned it. We drafted a letter seeking forgiveness, forgave ourselves looking in a mirror and were given an envelope if we intended to send it. Watching myself in the mirror was very hard, but the longer I did it, the more I softened and quit looking for the flaws and noticed the child of God peering back. I know last week’s challenge by my best friend to post 5 photos on Facebook in which I felt beautiful prepared me for this. Seemingly random, I know Spirit has been at work on me.

Once again, we were asked to return to the original entry and identify all of the people we mentioned, one attribute of that person and whether they would have seized that opportunity of denied love.

And then it was time for another list of 100, the I-am list. We were each handed a mirror and requested to spend 10 minutes gazing at ourselves, right between the eyebrows. That, was not easy; many of us groaned. The last time I spent much time looking in a mirror was during a shamanic breathwork retreat. Again, I had no idea what I had signed up for, but my young daughter had slipped her purple princess mirror in my purse as a marker of her presence with me. I did take a journey during the session and was forced to look in a mirror. I resisted, assuming I would see evil or ugliness. When I finally screwed up the courage, all I saw was myself. Nothing scary. This time, I further softened the critic in me and began to receive the eyes of unconditional love.

Putting the mirrors aside, we were asked to compare our “love is” and “I am” lists for matching words. Boy, was that interesting. We ran short of time, yet I managed to squeak in a quick sketch of a heart inside a circle surrounded by the shared words, the final step.

I have since delivered my request for forgiveness, which was met with a hug even though the recipient has not yet read its contents. And I also understand that my partnership, my marriage, is about growing into unconditional love not just for myself, but for another who is also less than perfect.

• How do I define unconditional love?

• Where do I experience it?

• Where do I give it?

• How have I been able to forgive myself?

• When do I see myself as a child of God?

all of these

lovely brides

in flowing white

committing themselves

in community

out there and upfront

to unconditional love,

the hardest kind

but the one with the

best example

it has been a

summer of love

Listen to this post:

Forgiveness: A gift of the heart

Forgiveness. That topic comes up somewhat regularly for me. And I just had a really deep conversation about it. The kind that doesn't normally pop up until a certain circumstance forces it on us. I am so grateful for that depth of discussion.

It's the "give" part that sticks to me and yesterday that was lurking in my brain, as yet unarticulated. Forgiveness, really, has more to do with the person who feels the need to forgive. Maybe a change of heart, a transformation, a softening. For adults, I don't think it can be immediate, because in order for us to believe we need to forgive, something big or longstanding has usually transpired. And, I believe the act is a process. Transformation from hardness to softness, hurt to healing unfolds over time. Much of the work of forgiveness happens on the part of the injured one.

For give. To give. To give for[th]. The act of giving.*

I love Quaker Phil Gulley's book "If Grace is True" as, over time, he has reached the conclusion that God loves us all and that enveloping love forgives everything. There isn't a final judgment with two lines: the saved and the damned.

We are ALL children of God and, very often, need to be reminded to look at ourselves and each other in that mirror of love.

When I am having difficulty with a person, sometimes, I visualize them as a child and my heart more easily sees, understands that soul.

Many years ago, after a wonderful facilitator led a retreat on forgiveness, I hatched (as if it were MY idea) a plan to host an evening of forgiveness at our meeting house. I was most-generously accommodated by our then minister. It was a very small group, but I knew numbers didn't matter. The few who attended warmed my heart. Enough to see what I had been called to this particular evening: I needed to forgive myself. I still need a periodic shove to do that. Thankfully, God knows what I need.

And sometimes that is to forgive.


[I don't mean to dismiss restitution for wrong-doing, I am merely addressing one side of the forgiveness issue here, now]* I like to look a words and what they mean for myself, without Webster – to explore them more deeply and personally


• Is there anything holding me back that could be softened by forgiveness? Anything stuck in my craw?
• Do I remember that I need to do to that for myself?
• Is there anyone from whom I could/should seek forgiveness?
• Can I remember what a soft heart feels like?


a lump in the throat
once swallowed
works its way
directly to
the heart

hard and cold,
it grows there
left unattended,
unexamined

that's not
the experience of
a child

a child
will grab onto
that stone,
examine it
with wonder
and curiosity

either casting
it aside
or offering it
to someone

as a gift

a gift of
the heart

Serendipity or something else?

My 12-year-old and I are floating on cloud 9 after a serendipitous gift yesterday. We were given symphony tickets for a 3 p.m. concert yesterday at 1 p.m. and my inclination was NOT to rush around and go, but Autumn kept interrupting and hounding me. Not her usual style. I was in the midst of too many things and unthinkingly said yes – but we had to go home first and re-group.

So, we went. Zipped right downtown to a $1-per-Sunday parking spot and into a beautiful Cincinnati church, St. Peter in Chains Cathedral. We did not realize our tickets got us into the reserved section, yet we managed to scout 2 consecutive seats in the almost-capacity crowd from the balcony. We were across from parents of my college roommate and behind a friend with whom I swim regularly ... all by chance. I’ve since had a facebook message from a college friend saying she saw us.

The mostly Bach concert was astoundingly beautiful. Autumn was so excited to hear the French horns, which she is learning. We lingered after and learned we had been invited to the reception [for what we weren't entirely certain]. So, she and I wound downstairs together to an intimate, friendly gathering. As we were perched with our snacks, a man dropped his coat on the chair next to Autumn and, at recognizing his face, I promptly spilled my plate of food all over the floor. It was the conductor, one of the most renowned in the world: Paavo Jarvi. Autumn said she had never seen me so flustered. I collected myself and asked if she’d like to meet him. She said sure as she recognized him from the program. We approached and said the music had been such a gift and that Autumn was a young French horn player. His face lit up and he encouraged her to practice, practice and she could become as accomplished as the symphony’s principal player, whom we met by circumstance this past summer.

On the ride home, I told Autumn more about who Paavo Jarvi is and she soaked it in, so excited that she treated me to Starbuck’s enroute. When we opened Sunday’s paper, we found his face plastered all over. She’s now making a scrapbook.

I know it wasn’t chance or circumstance or serendipity at work yesterday. On some level Autumn was nudged to go and she listened even when I didn’t. It was a once-in-a-lifetime meeting that will nourish both of us for a long time. And for me came the added element of seeing what it brought her and revel in her excitement as much as my own.

• How many times have I written off something wonderful as mere chance?

• Do I pay attention when I am being nudged?

• When I have listened, what’s the reward been?

• Can I recall that childlike wonder when something BIG happens?

• How am I a child of God?

* It was also a VERY historic concert, celebrating Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk's 50th year in the priesthood and the first time the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has ever played at St. Peter's