A Gathering of Yellow... Northern Maine
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Today's Saying: One way of speaking of love is - love is spontaneous welcome. And this welcome is before any word or act to be welcoming. True welcome is always, already present. This is why persons in silence together, not-doing and not-speaking, can feel so deeply connected with one another.
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Kabir Helminski (b. 1947), Sufi -
Once I asked some of our friends: What's the most important part of this work? Is it our zikrs? Is it our singing together, is it our worship, is it our cooking together, is it our conversations? And someone said, "It's our love," which runs through all of these.
*The Knowing Heart.
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I attended a book discussion online and wrote in advance to the leader. I informed her of my reluctance to share online, but I signed up, I told her, for I needed connection with others. She said to share or not as I wished, and she wrote she looked forward to meeting me. Her reply felt warmly welcoming. So, her response aided in preparing me more for entering a group of persons I did not know.
I enjoyed the group much. I felt free to share in small group and with the whole group. I had not shared so freely online in any prior gatherings I had attended. Usually, online I do not speak at all. I came seeking connection, and I was met by it. The warmth of connection felt in the reply from the leader via email was permeating the gathering. The environment created by the group invited fellowship - a gentle, welcoming space to enter and share freely.
In such a graceful space, one's sense of entering as a stranger can quickly be dissolved in the spirit of hospitality. This hospitality is not first about what anyone says to you or does for you. All the right things could be done to welcome you, and, yet, that is not essentially hospitality. Hospitality is first about the atmosphere created by those gathered together in that space. We all know what it is like to enter a group and immediately feel the lack of hospitality. Moreover, we know what it is to feel a space as kind, warm, and welcoming before anyone approaches us.
In contemplating the joy of the gathering, I am reminded of the story Helminski shares above. Whatever happens in a group, love is the most important thing that can happen - it is the essential ingredient. Love is the spirit of hospitality. This love cannot be faked, even as hospitality cannot be, and spiritually-hearted beings will quickly sense its presence or lack.
Only love fulfills our need for connection with others - heart-with-heart. Any gathering, religious or spiritual, is to be a space inviting connection... where love flows.
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*© Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
