Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009

Few people know that they are loved without any conditions or limits.

- Henri Nouwen, from his book “In the Name of Jesus”

This is one of the deepest reasons why human beings invented God. To know that we are “loved without any conditions or limits”. We absolutely need to know this. It is the foundation of being able to function as a person in the World. We human beings know that no human being can love us unconditionally – but most of us can only function with the knowledge of this character of Love which “passeth all understanding”. We absolutely need to know that our sense of loveliness and worth does NOT reside in the opinion of other human beings. Including our own opinion of ourself.

“God” knows that we need to know this. And so “God” has led us to the creation in our own psyche of such a loving God.

But: let’s not get confused here. Being loved unconditionally does NOT mean that who we are now and how we behave is acceptable. “Life” is about transformation. We are meant, destined, compelled to develop and grow. It may be in a spiral, with much too-ing and fro-ing as we climb the great Circle of Life. Nevertheless, we are held in the grip of the Voice of Mystery. That voice whispers or rings in our Consciousness all our lives. BE. That’s what it says: BE!

If there is any greatest gift that Christianity (and Judaism) has given us, it is a glimpse of a Deity who loves us unconditionally. Once we get this message, we are free. No amount of failure, discouragement, denigration, demeanment can possibly crush us. The vision of the Unconditional Lover floats up into our mind and heart – and we “pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off” and move forward again into transfiguration, into Becoming.

Brian+