Centered in Love
Centered in Love
Tuesday of Holy Week – April 7, 2020
It seems as if no one has been unaffected by the coronavirus, as well as by the many advisories and precautions under which we live. Information changes daily. Our lives are consumed with numbers, bar graphs, and maps color-coded by hotspot areas. Some of us want to gather all the information we can possible take in . . . while others of us just want to keep our heads down and wait for the virus to go away.
For six weeks or so, I’ve felt the need to drop anchor daily and to stay intentionally centered in love. There is so much that is uncertain, so much that tempts toward fear, so much that isolates . . . to stay centered in love seems essential to me.
I rehearse how I have noticed God’s love alive in the world.
I celebrate the creative expressions of love I notice amidst the difficulties of physical distancing.
I meditate on love as an active force in the world, not merely as a word, an idea, or a feeling.
Brother Lawrence was a simple monk. In reading his letters, you won’t be bowled over by his profound theology or his tremendous insights. He simply went about his work day by day, conscious of God’s love in everything he did.
Brother Lawrence pointed out that he spoke very simply and frankly to God. He asked for help with things as he needed it, and his experience had been that God never failed to respond.
Only recently, Brother Lawrence was asked to go into Burgundy to get supplies for the monastery. This chore was difficult for him, because, first of all, he had no head for business. And, secondly, he was lame in one leg and could not walk on the boat without falling against the cargo of barrels. But neither this awkwardness nor the errand in general caused him any distress. He simply told God that it was His affair, after which he found that everything turned out nicely.
Things went the same way in the kitchen of the monastery, where he worked. Although he once had a great dislike for kitchen work, he developed quite a facility for doing it over the fifteen years he was there. He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often as possible for grace to do his work. He said that he was presently in the shoe repair shop, and that he liked it very much. He would, however, be willing to work anywhere, always rejoicing at being able to do little things for the love of God.
[Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1982).]
For Reflection:
o What practice today would center me in love? How could I touch and hold onto that center amidst the shifting sands of this pandemic?
o For Brother Lawrence, even the mundane tasks of the kitchen became prayer as he did them for the love of God.
o I spend a moment considering my daily work, whatever it is. However large or small it might be, do I hear an invitation from God related to how I make daily work my prayer?
Tuesday of Holy Week – April 7, 2020
It seems as if no one has been unaffected by the coronavirus, as well as by the many advisories and precautions under which we live. Information changes daily. Our lives are consumed with numbers, bar graphs, and maps color-coded by hotspot areas. Some of us want to gather all the information we can possible take in . . . while others of us just want to keep our heads down and wait for the virus to go away.
For six weeks or so, I’ve felt the need to drop anchor daily and to stay intentionally centered in love. There is so much that is uncertain, so much that tempts toward fear, so much that isolates . . . to stay centered in love seems essential to me.
I rehearse how I have noticed God’s love alive in the world.
I celebrate the creative expressions of love I notice amidst the difficulties of physical distancing.
I meditate on love as an active force in the world, not merely as a word, an idea, or a feeling.
Brother Lawrence was a simple monk. In reading his letters, you won’t be bowled over by his profound theology or his tremendous insights. He simply went about his work day by day, conscious of God’s love in everything he did.
Brother Lawrence pointed out that he spoke very simply and frankly to God. He asked for help with things as he needed it, and his experience had been that God never failed to respond.
Only recently, Brother Lawrence was asked to go into Burgundy to get supplies for the monastery. This chore was difficult for him, because, first of all, he had no head for business. And, secondly, he was lame in one leg and could not walk on the boat without falling against the cargo of barrels. But neither this awkwardness nor the errand in general caused him any distress. He simply told God that it was His affair, after which he found that everything turned out nicely.
Things went the same way in the kitchen of the monastery, where he worked. Although he once had a great dislike for kitchen work, he developed quite a facility for doing it over the fifteen years he was there. He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often as possible for grace to do his work. He said that he was presently in the shoe repair shop, and that he liked it very much. He would, however, be willing to work anywhere, always rejoicing at being able to do little things for the love of God.
[Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1982).]
For Reflection:
o What practice today would center me in love? How could I touch and hold onto that center amidst the shifting sands of this pandemic?
o For Brother Lawrence, even the mundane tasks of the kitchen became prayer as he did them for the love of God.
o I spend a moment considering my daily work, whatever it is. However large or small it might be, do I hear an invitation from God related to how I make daily work my prayer?
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