Being "played in" to the music of love

Many years ago (38 years ago to be precise) I was part of a singing group that was blessed with a young and highly accomplished violinist.  First a disclaimer: I'm not a musician and it was a long time ago so, musicians, bear with me if I get the detail or terminology incorrect. He arrived one day with a violin which had only just been completed by a master violin-maker for an older, professional violinist. He told us he had been given it for a year to "play it in" for its new owner.  He explained that this was a great privilege as he was being entrusted with the task of playing this instrument until the very cells of the timber from which it was made became alligned to the music played on it. It was critical not to drop it or bang it as this would undo all that good work. 

I thought about this in relation to my own ambition for the final chapters of my life.  I want to be "played in" through loving until my life and being are fully attuned to love. 

So what actually is love? This is where language fails. I am, within my Christian tradition, a mystic. That is, I seek to experience God, not merely serve God. I am 67 and have been praying for as long as I can remember. All that time I have been seeking to journey into God and God's love. 

The more I do so the more I would say love us an emptying. It is an outpouring, from your heart first, which is reflected in outpouring from your material resources.  The tricky thing about that is this can be misunderstood as self-negation, as saying you do not matter, your needs do not matter. Jesus seems to teach "self-denial" and that has been a strong, and I think very damaging, emphasis in 2000 years of Christian teaching. In fact when I was a child we sang a song in "Sunday School" with these terrible words,
                                                                 "Jesus and Others and You
                                                            what a wonderful way to spell JOY,
                                                                     Jesus and Others and You
                                                            in the heart of each girl and each boy.
                                                              "J" is for Jesus for he has first place.
                                                              "O" is for others we meet face to face.
                                                                   "Y" is for you, in whatever you do,
                                                                     put yourself LAST and spell JOY."
The problem with this is that it teaches children they are less worthy than anyone else in this picture to be the recipient of love. We are not. We are each as worthy of receiving love and another.  Love is lavish and generous. There is something joyfully reckless about love. We need to experience a lavish, reckless, outpouring of love toward us before we are ready to give it, to pour out love from our own heart, our own life.

Jesus spoke his words of "denying self", of "taking up our cross" and following him into a context in which to follow him could well result in death. So he was speaking about a real cost. He was warning would-be followers to "count the cost", to check they had it in them to go the distance with him or not start out on that journey.  He also was addressing these words, particularly, to men, who were used to being served, not used to serving. 

Sadly we have spent 2000 years turning this into a culture of self-negation, of thinking of ourselves as unworthy of being loved lavishly. We have also used this teaching to reinforce the oppression of women and people lower in the social heap. We have taught them to serve.....US, to know their place in relation to US.

Love is also delight. There is a beautiful line in the Jewish Wisdom in which "Dame Wisdom" and God are delighting in humanity which they have made. We need to "get" this in the core of our beings, that we are DELIGHTFUL to God. Love for others is delighting in them, enjoying them, and letting them know how delightful they are to us and how much joy they bring us. Love, if it is real and genuine, leaves others feeling like they are the most important person in the world, at least to us in that moment.  This is because, when we know we are "delightful" we can lavish delight on others. We can truly enjoy all kinds of people. It does not on how attractive they are. It is inherent in their humanity. They are delightful because they are human. 

Love is also adoration. This is where it connects, perhaps the only place it connects well, with romantic love. Romantic love is not really about the other's needs. It is about brain chemicals that get released into our system and create such lovely feelings in us that we think this person is perfect for us. Until the drugs wear off! Yet the adoration that is natural in romantic love is something we all yearn for. We love to be loved like that. We love to be "adored" by someone. And we can gift another this. We can find things in them which are "adorable".

These are some of the qualities I find as I journey into God, a lavish, reckless, outpouring of Godself from the abundance that is God, a delighting in humanity, and an adoration. Is it possible for God to "adore" us? Do we adore our children when they are new babies? Do we adore them sometimes when they don't know we are watching them? Yes, we do. And God adores. 

I pray each morning opening myself to God and to love and in part of my daily meditation I use the words, "Loving, adoring, delighting, outpouring". This is the music I want to play in me until the very cells of my body become alligned to it.