I have taped to my computer a question my meditation teacher posed to our group this week: How can we shift from chasing love to being love? Exploring this question leads me to a multitude of thoughts about love and acceptance of self, including the parts of self that I find more human than divine.
In a Qigong class I sometimes attend, the leader always ends by saying “Remember that you are love and remember to be love in all you do this day.” Can I be love, not despite, but inclusive of, my humanity? St. Augustine articulated this earth-bound tendency towards dissatisfaction and self-doubt well:“You have made us for yourself [O Lord], and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Not too long ago I was reminded by a friend that Christianity is an embodied religion. God’s Word was made flesh – an embodied expression of God’s love. As someone who is still learning what it means to live in my body, this is another phrase I’ve written down on a sticky note, lest I let it go without fully exploring its meaning.
In this week’s gospel reading* Jesus identifies himself not only as an embodied expression of God’s love, but also as our source of spiritual sustenance. As we have seen in other gospel verses, those who cannot see beyond Jesus’ human form are not able to take in the life-giving word-made-flesh reality that Jesus offers. Jesus encourages us to embrace a self-understanding that we are also embodied spiritual beings nourished by our connection to the Divine, the Christ in us. No need to chase love. We are loved. And as God’s people, we join all of creation as the embodiment of love, however perfectly or imperfectly we express that reality today.
