Love as THE Ethic

Since my spiritual awakening, I describe God as Love and myself and all people as children of God. Children of Love. Describing God as Love might seem serene, peaceful and benevolent. Attributes I would certainly associate with love but the love I’m describing is more than a sentiment; Love is an ethic. For me, it’s THE ethic in which to live my life.

The Golden Rule articulated, treat others like you would want to be treated. This expressed ethical behavior encapsulated for me as love God, love yourself and love your neighbor. Living benefactors of the same caring expression. Love is words AND actions that only seek the wellbeing of ALL people and expects no reciprocity even in the most hostile of situations.

If I’m committed and convinced this is my ethical foundation as a child of God, then I’m obligated and obliged to order my behavior to conform to this commandment in my own life. Owning my words and my actions. Doing everything I can in every moment to create more love in the world.

Wow! Let those words steep into your heart, saturate your brain and soak your soul. Embracing God’s Love, I can no longer live a life centered around my own selfish desires. This realization as catastrophic to my ego as any 40-day and 40-night rain fall. Washing away everything I thought I knew and believed. Waters that rescued my belief in God and saved my life. A rainbow connection of lovers and dreamers and me.     

This commandment of unrestricted and unconditional love is a challenging and radical way of living for me. A deliberately drastic re-interpretation of interaction in a world where only stuff matters. A world I made with words and actions lacking in love for myself and others.

This existential approach of offering Love towards all people is not easy. The gate to enter is small. The road really is narrow.   

Like all floods, living Love is both creative and destructive. The past self-centered Don, washed away by waters of grace, humility and compassion. Accepting my imperfections and the imperfections of all people as gifts from God. Humbly approaching my limitations and the limitations of all people while knowing we all have value and potential to contribute to the human experience. Learning to lead with empathy for myself and other people because we all have felt loss and have suffered in a love-less world.

A world I helped create and one I can no longer support. Realizing I cannot return to my past career in pharmaceutical marketing. Questioning everything I’ve been taught by all human institutions including my own government. Angry that WE create war, poverty, divisiveness, fear, illness and needless suffering because we do not live our lives by the Law of Love or a Gospel of Peace. No longer wanting to lose my life to gain the world even as I lose the world I’ve known. Love is the ethic that will never die with our words because it lives in our actions.