Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, May 19, 2010

This is love:
to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First to let go of life.
Finally, to take a step without feet.

Rumi


The scariness of Love is the relinquishment of one’s Self. Now, this is not a denial of one’s Self. Nor is it a diminishing of one’s Self in any way. In fact, it is an enlargement. I think this is what is known as a Paradox, or a Mystery. Two things can be true at the same time. One let’s go of the Self, and yet the Self is glorified. I think this is the Mystery of the Christ’s actions in Gethsemane and in His journey to the Cross and death, mythologically speaking. This paradox is the wonder of Love. John the Baptist understood this Mystery. He said of Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease.” And yet Jesus was to say of John, “He is the least in the Kingdom of God, and yet no one is greater than He.”

Risking Love is the great act of Becoming. The “step without feet”. But before one can do this act, can “take a step without feet”, one has to “let go of Life”. This sounds like a negative thing; but Jesus is reported to have said, “Anyone who seeks to hold onto his life in this World will lose it; but anyone who is willing to lose his life in this World for my sake will keep it for Eternity.” The Myth of Jesus says that he went to death willingly, trusting in His God; He was “rewarded” with Life beyond Death. Our path to Life is His path.

When we offer or accept Love – and this is an aspect of “dying” - we “fly toward a secret sky”. All that is hidden in the great Mystery of Life, behind “a hundred veils”, falls away. And all that we feared falls away too.

To Love is the greatest act of claiming our Humanity. It is freeing, it is ecstasy, it is empowerment.

Pay attention. Whenever you are offered the opportunity to “fly toward a secret sky”, leap without hesitation!

Brian+