Love Loves What Is As It Is

Love loves what is as it is.

I have been saying this for years, mostly because it represents a life-stance to which I aspire, not a stance I have attained. Alas, I discover over and over again how far I have yet to travel in order to make this truth my very own.

I wish "Love loves what is as it is" was a comforting insight. Truly, it doesn't offer comfort to me as much as it disturbs me, challenges me, and presses me to a more God-centered stance toward people and situations.

Authentic love is not aligned with certain favorable conditions that are conducive to love and goodwill. Real love is not based on another person changing their ways, and thus becoming more lovable. Transforming love does not withhold itself in protest or make half-baked promises which are conditioned on certain outcomes.

Love loves what is . . . as it is. It does not wait for change. It does not demand the other become lovable -- though for the health of the other and the world, it may be in everyone's best interest for the other to become more lovable! -- before it loves.

Most days I lose touch with this Love early in the morning. I become angry at persons who use power to diminish others or who lord it over those who have no power. I withhold kindness to punish others for the wounds I perceive they have inflicted on me. I wait for wrongs to be righted as a kind of penance before I dare to invest my love and life in a person or situation.

I am frequently called back to Love, however. I am reminded often of my intention to live from an anchored Center, to approach the world from a core of mercy and compassion, rather than judgment and division. I am welcomed back to my foundational belief that those who live from this Center (what Jesus called "the kingdom of God") make a difference in the world simply by their presence.

A few months ago Deepak Chopra was on a late-night talk show. In the midst of talk about the healing power of meditation, the conversation turned to the anxiety, tension, and conflict in the world right now, and Chopra's belief that the turbulence is a sign of society going through a time of transition.

Then the host asked Chopra about inviting the President for a week of meditation, saying, "Do you think you could break him down?" Chopra responded, "You don't need to break him down. Go beyond his wounds to what is really troubling him. He needs love."

I could feel the jolt within myself . . . the air sucked out of my lungs. I was aghast! The loudest part of my being shouted, "Love a narcissist, a bully? Never!"

And the still, small voice within me said, "You KNOW it's true. You must love! This is the path you've chosen. Now walk in it."