There have been millions of words written and thousands of pictures painted that try to capture the essential essence of the human experience. Often these themes highlight our passions, such as adoration and abhorrence, greed and generosity, and death and deliverance. And yet, every book and painting remains outside of ourselves regardless of its impact to our head or heart.
The crux of the human experience, life itself, isn’t an abstract theory of relativity but the absolute Truth of reality. A representativeness that transcends time, supersedes space and limits no location. While Love is the heart of the cosmos, love only becomes reality when its relational. Felt and faced by another sovereign soul.
But love has never been the default desire of human experience. It’s one passion among numerous passions that compete for our heart’s desire. Love maybe a splendid thing, but it’s not the only thing that fills our heart.
And what fills our heart is what we share with the world. Emotions and egoism, biases and beliefs that are choreographed and composed. Performed participation that will impact every relationship. The conduit that connects creatures with creation and the cosmos.
Relationships represent the rivers that run through our life. At times they can be tumultuous and terrible, at other times they can be peaceful and productive. Worldly waters fed by springs of history, hubris and humility.
If love is the seed of life, than its soil is our relationships. A field that will either prove to be fertile and plentiful or fractional and poisonous. Our relationships are literally a matter of life and death, both here and beyond here. They define the world we have chosen and describe the world we desire.
When we try to live a life absent of any relationship, we wither and die. Like the universe, like God, we are relational creatures. This is why the “key” to the good life, a righteous life, is a life lived in right relationship with both God and neighbor.
Because we depend on God for everything, including our own lives, this is the most important relationship for any person. Not simply because of its existential importance, but because this is the foundational relationship that will inform all our relationships. An instruction manual that describes and directs us in all our relations with all of God’s good creation.
What does a life that leads with love look like? A life that’s lived in right relation. A life whose rich reward is righteousness that reverberates across all realms. It begins by living a life that recognizes that relationships mean the world because they are the world.
It means recognizing there is a right and wrong way to interact with one another. There is a good and bad way to act and react in every situation. There are moral insights to help us discern the healthy and unhealthy relationships in all our lives. The answer to any relationship riddle lies in finding ways to live with love for all people even in the most hostile of circumstances.
Our life’s mission to build a relationship with God goes in tandem with working to build loving relationships with all our neighbors. The type of love that is patient and kind. The type of love that does not envy, does not boast, and is not proud. The type of love that doesn’t dishonor others, isn’t self-seeking, isn’t easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. The type of love that doesn’t delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. The type of love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. The type of love that never fails because God never fails us his beloved children.
This same definition of what love looks like is relevant for all of life’s relations because no one is an island unto themselves. This includes appreciating and learning from those who have already been here, who helped create the world we have inherited. It also means we have a responsibility to future generations to create a world where love is foundational in all our relationships including family, friend and foe.
This same definition of what love looks like is relevant for all relations with all of creation and all its magnificent creatures. Taking care of the planet by taking only what we need. Cleaning-up after ourselves and respecting everything that God has created and given to us to allow humanity to flourish.
This same definition of what love looks like is relevant because God loves you. The same God who created you also wants to be in relationship with you. This is the essential, elemental and eternal nature of God. God is love.
Peace. God loves you.
If you want to learn more about how my spiritual awakening came to be, you can read about it in Finding God in Vegas: A Gen X Spiritual Awakening; available on Amazon and across all platforms in print or electronic or audio.