I’ve meditated on today’s reflection for two days now.  In the last two days, I still must admit that I am still processing the simplicity and profundity of God is love. 

I have erroneously made love into what I pleased in the past by using God and love interchangeably.  If I am correctly reading and interpreting God to be Love, everything comes from that source of love.  Everything.  All cries for love are cries for the source from which we all come.  Making love seems to be a misnomer in that sense, for one cannot make God.  But, can one bring God into that act?  Yes, I believe so.

Giving up, releasing, dying to self, humbling… these are all terms that one could associate with weakness.  Certainly in our relationships, we don’t want to give our needs up for others… Or  do we?  My most fulfilling relationships have been those in which we’ve submitted to one another.   Just the other day, one of my Angel sisters revealed to me that while I’d been crying in her ear, she had been dealing with her own trial.  She never once told me that until she knew I was okay.  I believe I’ve done that for other people–I hope that I have.  We surrender our present thoughts and worries to carry those of our loved ones.  Isn’t that a humbling experience to be granted that trust?  Do we not temporarily give up a need to carry that of a loved one? 

I was reminded today that “The greatest protection is a loving heart.  Protecting yourself, you protect others.  Protecting others, you protect yourself.” (Buddha)  Perhaps then, it is also true that the greatest act of righteousness is to radically love others.  In radically loving others, we are radically loved.

1 John 4:7-21. God is love.

Many people take legitimate comfort from these  three words, but we may also take false comfort from them by reversing the subject and the subject complement, making it “Love is God.” That way, love comes first and defines God. We can then make love to  mean whatever we please and tell ourselves that’s  what God is–sympathy, kindness, beauty, family loyalty, patriotism, emotional attraction, puppies and kittens, whatever. Those things are all commendable, but they have little to do with “God is love.”

Start with God, not with love, and let God define love. John says here that love is seen in that God “sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” These words suggest that love is something God does, not something God feels. The word “sacrifice” further suggests that it is a giving up, a humbling, a dying. And the word “atoning” suggests that it brings  together parties otherwise estranged.

“We also ought to love one another,” the text says. That means what characterizes God’s love for us should also characterize our love for each other. “God is love” is something we do; it is our giving up, our humbling of ourselves, our dying and uniting with those estranged from us. Are we doing “God is love”?

I pray for the grace to submit myself to those whom I love.  I ask for forgiveness for the times in which I did not.  I pray that I am there when my loved ones need me, and that I remember–not my will, but Yours–to act out of Love.