38.Poem 4: Finding Love

In the temple of the soul our God abides
Waiting for the soul to awaken to love's call.

Sr Roselle Schaefer. OFM.

We all have an intense desire to be loved and nurtured. It is one of our most basic and fundamental needs. We also have a similar desire to love and care for others. These are both programmed into our DNA. How we meet and fulfil these natural desires can be one of the most complicated and challenging experiences of our lives. Part of our struggle is caused by our need to be also independent. Yet we don't understand that the fabric of our life is already woven into the reality we call God. God is the ground of all being. To use contemporary language, God is the 'unifying field' in whom everything is 'entangled' or inseparable. No wonder the Hebrew poet asks: 'Where can I flee from your presence?'. This means 'finding' love is one of the most natural and most difficult challenges of our life. Even Jesus acknowledged this:

Finding Love

Ask, and don't stop asking,
and you will receive;
seek, and don't stop searching,
and you will find;
knock, and keep on knocking,
and Love will open her door to you.(1)

For Love is hidden like yeast,
taken by a woman and buried in flour.
In the secret depths of your heart,
Love does her work
and becomes food for the hungry.(2)

Or, Love is like a woman
who was carrying home a sack full of flour.
While she was walking the sack split
and the flour began to spill
along the road behind her.
When she got home
she discovered her sack was empty.(3)

Therefore, you cannot see Love.
You cannot say, 'Look, here is Love!'
or 'There it is!'
For, in fact,
Love is already spread out upon the earth
and people don't notice it.(4)

Wherever you are,
Love is there with you.
Whatever you do,
Love is there to assist you.
Wherever you go
Love is already there to welcome you.(5)
So if you want to find Love,
you need to have the
openness and curiosity of a little child,(6)
because Love already dwells within your heart
and is all around you! (7)

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil

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1. Luke 11:9-10
2. Thomas 96
3 .Thomas 97
4. Luke 17:20; Thomas 113
5. Thomas 77
6. Mark 10:14,15
7. Luke 17:21

These poems are taken from Phil's book, Awakening the Spirit: Poems of Divine Love, Tawera Press, 2011