February is a month when Love flickers through our thoughts. We exchange tokens of endearment - chocolates or lacey cards. Allow me to recall a few experiences of Agape – Unconditional Love.
The presence of Agape was there as I sat at the edge of the Grand Canyon, watching the sun rise or set, or at the edge of the ocean, watching the surf, while the sun rose or set. At times it came streaming down through ornate stained-glass, while a massive pipe organ played a Bach prelude.
I’m sure it was present at the moment of my conception, in the love of two people, or at the moment of my birth, however many years ago, or the birth of a sibling, when I realized that the tiny infant was also a part of my world - my family.
I heard it at the birth of my four children, when I first held a new miracle that came from my own body, fully developed, fully human. At the birth of my grandchildren, I saw the look of Love in my daughter’s eyes, nursing and caring for her babies, or of my sons, as they became fathers instead of rebellious teens, knowing that Love goes on and on.
Agape has been close to me in death as well as in birth, with a Great-Grandmother, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and finally my own Father and Mother. I saw Love as my father struggled for life after heart surgery, so new then, so routine today. I saw Love with a step-son, as he died of AIDS.
Agape is closest, however, in moments of living, when children learn to walk, run, relate with their world. I have knelt by the side of a baby’s crib, and given thanks that the fever had finally broken.
Love was there as I sailed on the ocean, in calm or storm, as I stood at the wheel of my boat, and looked up to see if all was well where the mast made a cross with the spreaders. I was aware of Agape guiding me. From a simple field of clover in the mid-west, to flying over the Valley of 10,000 Smokes in Alaska, to climbing Mt. Fuji in the beginnings of a typhoon, I found Love.
Ten clergy women from various denominations spent three days in the desert of North East Arizona. In silence we ate soup and home-made bread around a long table. In silence we spread our quilts to sleep on the floor, and in silence we rose with the sun to walk single file into the desert. Seated on top of the massive buttes, we meditated in silence, listened to the Love Song of The Universe.
Another time I knelt quietly on top of another mountain, Mount Koya outside of Kyoto in Japan. There I meditated with my God in my own way while a dozen Buddhist monks chanted in Sanskrit. Incense swirled around the room, centuries-old statues lined the walls. My knees ached and I remembered the padded pews of my church back in the United States. The tinkling of a bell brought me back and I listened to the Love Song of the Universe.
A friend and I stood in the middle of a tropical rain forest on the island of Yap. We watched in awe as thirty Yappese women knelt in the light of bamboo torches wearing only dry grass skirts, as they practiced their dance for the new Peace Corps group arriving the next day. They danced the Gospel story, faces glowing, singing the Love Song of the Universe.
From the primitive music of that Pacific Island, to magnificent choirs and symphonies, to a simple child’s song taught to me by a massive, but loving woman who spent her life in a little village in South Africa, the Song goes on.
As an adult I visited a missionary friend in Kagoshima, Japan, with her Japanese congregation. Our only communication was that Old-Fashioned Love Song. In small Southern churches I have fanned the flies away, while we sang, swayed, clapped, and worshiped. In great cathedrals with several thousand other voices, I have sung great hymns.
“O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing...”
There are other times in a person’s life when we recognize the Love Song. For me, many of those took place before an altar. There I was baptized, confirmed, took communion, married, or stood there with my children for their baptisms, their confirmations, their marriages. Then as I knelt at the altar before hundreds of people and several Bishops, I was ordained as a United Methodist Minister.
The Song is always there, but often our attention is on other things, and we miss it.
Often I only recognize the Love Song when it is called to my attention and it connects me with Spirit. I have heard it called the Sabbath of Location. Life becomes a celebration in that moment, not a spectator sport. It is a moment when I experience reality, touch life.
The Song of the Universe is right now - as I study, pray, teach, act. I listen for that Song in each moment of my life, and it always brings a change.
When do you hear that Old-Fashioned Love Song?
The presence of Agape was there as I sat at the edge of the Grand Canyon, watching the sun rise or set, or at the edge of the ocean, watching the surf, while the sun rose or set. At times it came streaming down through ornate stained-glass, while a massive pipe organ played a Bach prelude.
I’m sure it was present at the moment of my conception, in the love of two people, or at the moment of my birth, however many years ago, or the birth of a sibling, when I realized that the tiny infant was also a part of my world - my family.
I heard it at the birth of my four children, when I first held a new miracle that came from my own body, fully developed, fully human. At the birth of my grandchildren, I saw the look of Love in my daughter’s eyes, nursing and caring for her babies, or of my sons, as they became fathers instead of rebellious teens, knowing that Love goes on and on.
Agape has been close to me in death as well as in birth, with a Great-Grandmother, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and finally my own Father and Mother. I saw Love as my father struggled for life after heart surgery, so new then, so routine today. I saw Love with a step-son, as he died of AIDS.
Agape is closest, however, in moments of living, when children learn to walk, run, relate with their world. I have knelt by the side of a baby’s crib, and given thanks that the fever had finally broken.
Love was there as I sailed on the ocean, in calm or storm, as I stood at the wheel of my boat, and looked up to see if all was well where the mast made a cross with the spreaders. I was aware of Agape guiding me. From a simple field of clover in the mid-west, to flying over the Valley of 10,000 Smokes in Alaska, to climbing Mt. Fuji in the beginnings of a typhoon, I found Love.
Ten clergy women from various denominations spent three days in the desert of North East Arizona. In silence we ate soup and home-made bread around a long table. In silence we spread our quilts to sleep on the floor, and in silence we rose with the sun to walk single file into the desert. Seated on top of the massive buttes, we meditated in silence, listened to the Love Song of The Universe.
Another time I knelt quietly on top of another mountain, Mount Koya outside of Kyoto in Japan. There I meditated with my God in my own way while a dozen Buddhist monks chanted in Sanskrit. Incense swirled around the room, centuries-old statues lined the walls. My knees ached and I remembered the padded pews of my church back in the United States. The tinkling of a bell brought me back and I listened to the Love Song of the Universe.
A friend and I stood in the middle of a tropical rain forest on the island of Yap. We watched in awe as thirty Yappese women knelt in the light of bamboo torches wearing only dry grass skirts, as they practiced their dance for the new Peace Corps group arriving the next day. They danced the Gospel story, faces glowing, singing the Love Song of the Universe.
From the primitive music of that Pacific Island, to magnificent choirs and symphonies, to a simple child’s song taught to me by a massive, but loving woman who spent her life in a little village in South Africa, the Song goes on.
As an adult I visited a missionary friend in Kagoshima, Japan, with her Japanese congregation. Our only communication was that Old-Fashioned Love Song. In small Southern churches I have fanned the flies away, while we sang, swayed, clapped, and worshiped. In great cathedrals with several thousand other voices, I have sung great hymns.
“O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing...”
There are other times in a person’s life when we recognize the Love Song. For me, many of those took place before an altar. There I was baptized, confirmed, took communion, married, or stood there with my children for their baptisms, their confirmations, their marriages. Then as I knelt at the altar before hundreds of people and several Bishops, I was ordained as a United Methodist Minister.
The Song is always there, but often our attention is on other things, and we miss it.
Often I only recognize the Love Song when it is called to my attention and it connects me with Spirit. I have heard it called the Sabbath of Location. Life becomes a celebration in that moment, not a spectator sport. It is a moment when I experience reality, touch life.
The Song of the Universe is right now - as I study, pray, teach, act. I listen for that Song in each moment of my life, and it always brings a change.
When do you hear that Old-Fashioned Love Song?
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