Photo: View of the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean from Point Pleasant, NJ 11.6.24

Now, More Than Ever, Be The Light: Choose Love

The Sun rose today.  Here is what she said.  

Now more than ever is when Love is called on. These are the times when Love is most needed and most effective. Loving only when justice, truth, and wisdom are in power is merely a confirmation of Love’s existence. Loving when cruelty, violence, and vulgarity are in power is an exercise of Love’s power. 

Now is when we are being called on to live out our Imago Dei and extend grace, mercy, and love to those who seek to harm, to control, to destroy. May those who seek to extinguish Love galvanize the divine defiance of Love in us. They can no more extinguish the sun and stop her from rising. 

The rising sun is the ultimate display of divine defiance in a world where the very creatures that she warms and nourishes often refuse to acknowledge her presence. Choosing Love when it’s convenient and feels good is a self-affirming exercise. Choosing Love when it’s inconvenient and undeserved is a self-sacrificing act of sacred rebellion. 

The sun rises. It isn’t that Love will prevail. Love prevails. We can choose to justifiably rage and blame and despise the selfish forces that oppose Love. And still she warms. We can lash back and use similar selfish means to justify a righteous end that we seek. And still she nourishes. We can turn our backs and deny its existence. And still she radiates.

Or, we can choose to surrender to the counter-intuitive power of Love’s unconditional grace. The sun rises on all without regard to whether we deserve to be warmed and nourished and blessed with beauty. To question “Why?” only hinders our ability to fully participate in the daily miracle of being alive at such a time as this.

Now, more than ever, let us be the light and let us choose Love. Love will prevail and Love does prevail. Love expands and shapes. Love tenderizes and persists. Love surrenders and defies. Love is eternal and now. Love is specific and unconditional. Love prevails. Love is God in us.  

Be the Light. Choose Love. 

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A post-election meditation inspired by Jesus’ call to love our adversary in Matt. 5:43-48, the qualities of Love in Corinthians 13:4-8, and the relationship between light and beauty in Ecclesiastes 11: 7-10

Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. Ecc. 11:7

Matthew 5:43-48 from The Message and The Voice translations.

You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. God causes the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that….you are called to something higher. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.

I Corinthians 13:4-8

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies.