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Pink Flowering Dogwood
There are many ways in the Way, yet Love is the Way. What is more important?
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A distressed woman visited the Sage and presented her complaint. She said, "I used to be a loving person. I feel my heart has grown cold. I grieve this loss but don't know how to regain it. I wish I could feel the love I once did." Said the Sage, "The heart grows cold parted from love. Near love, it grows in love. Love sires love. Love expands love. Live close to love, letting love love."
"What do you mean by 'letting love love?'" "Remove the 'I' that claims not to love or to love. Be a vessel of love - let love do the pouring in and the pouring out of itself."
"But," said the woman, "I feel I've failed at love. I'm not sure of being able to love again." "Again, remove the 'I' that says 'I've failed.' It doesn't matter now. Now is love, and love is now. Now and here is the home of love. To be here and now is to be in love. Come to where you are."
"What do you mean, 'Come to where you are?'" "The heart is always in love - it is love - while the mind takes you elsewhere. You are the heart, so you are always in love. Remembering this is returning to love. The return is the remembrance... of yourself, not who you think you are The heart has a totally different intelligence."
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The Way is living near to the Heart of Love... the Beloved. Cultivating love means growing in the capacity to receive love and be a sacrament of love. As your capacity to receive grows, your capacity to be a means grows, even as receiving and giving become one spontaneous act.
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*© Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*The above story is part of a collection of stories by Brian called "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
*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.
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