Things You’ll Need to Give
FROM CHAPTER FOUR: THINGS YOU’LL NEED TO GIVE
GIVE LOVE
“Love thy neighbor as thyself”(Mathew 19: 19) is one of the commandments, but how do we do that? Love is a powerful word and one that we have made conditional in our very human lives. We love because of someone’s appearance or actions; “I will love you if …” We have love all caught up in romantic feelings and relationships (our parents, siblings, friends) and so it is easy to be confused about what is being asked of us. Our neighbor, that is the world, can be filled with many things and ways of being that we do not love. So the commandment becomes a riddle for us to solve. Each of us instinctively wants to love, but how? How can we take this very personal and powerful thing that we feel and give it to a neighbor that we might not want to love?
GIVE MEANING
Without meaning our lives and actions are lost. Meaning fills and makes real the intention of Spirit in our lives. It is the intent that matters. If there is meaning in our actions, Spirit is at work in our lives, and things will have depth and purpose. We have the awesome responsibility to the Spirit’s intention and purpose by adding depth and value to our experiences. It is the way we devote ourselves to what we are doing that creates meaning. Are we coming from a place of love, compassion, sincerity, peace or joy? Where we are coming from has the power to create and the power to destroy. The inner importance we give to any action will determine the outcome and what we become in the process.
GIVE GOD
In the Substantive Properties of Spirit, Thomas Troward tells us that Spirit is: “Life, Love, Light, Power, Peace, Beauty, Joy.” We do not see these things as things, but we see and experience their effects. We can see them and experience them because these attributes are in us too. God has given us what God is. We are created in the image and likeness of… and, therefore, have an instinctive longing to give, and to offer what we are.
from the poem:
There’s a Pocket in my Soul
“There’s a pocket in my soul
I think God is a good tailor to put it there,
A place to keep little things for myself,
And other things to share.”