"Your love is lifting me higher
Than I've ever been lifted before…"
- Jackie Wilson
Okay, so this is the song that was playing in my head when I woke up this morning…but not just the above verse…no, nothing so soothing…it was the more rock and rolling (or as the Rockabelles say) Barack and roll-ing part of the song:
"Your love keeps lifiting me
Keeps on lifting me
Higher…higher and higher…
Your love keeps lifting me
Keeps on lifting me
Higher…higher and higher…"
Over and over again it played through my heart and then it started spreading out to my arms and legs and through to my fingers and toes…flying from my fingertips and toes like sparks on the Fourth of July. It was a prayer. And like King David I "danced before the Lord with all [my] might". I felt like I could have run through the streets…running and leaping and praising God.
The wonderful part was that there was no real reason. I simply felt happy to know that I am His…that I am God's child, idea, statement, song…it was enough.
Then it hit me, this was true for my children. Each of them…in South Africa, California, Missouri, Florida…each of them was waking up to the very same truth about themselves. They were walking in a world where they were exactly who they were supposed to be…themselves. They were part of a divine design. Everyone they met as they walked on beaches, skied down mountains, rode the Matterhorn, rehearsed for a dance performance or worked in an office, was also part of that perfect design. Everything fit.
I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice before stepping out onto the deck. Still, with even more rhythm and joy, this wonderful prayer-in-song played through my heart. As I looked out on the street I could see college students and young moms with strollers negotiating narrow sidewalks as then made their way to school and daycare. They too were part of a perfect pattern. Exuberant toddlers giving hurrying college professors the opportunity to be patient as the shared the sidewalk, and students generously offering to carry a diaper bag or a car seat for an overburdened mom loading up the day's necessities into the mini van.
I felt like every thought and act of love lifted humanity higher and higher in the scale of being. It was as if I could actually see us all elevating above the silliness of political parrying, gossip, ambition, and greed.
Love…that most powerful verb…does lift us higher. Each time we face down ignorance, apathy, and tolerance with real brotherly compassion and understanding we bring the whole human family with us in ascending out of mortality. Whenever we refuse to deliver that scathing retort, or insist that kindness is more important than being best, or great, or first in line…we are reaching that place that is higher and higher. When we love, we lift ourselves and others out of doubt and fear into the sunlight of truth…the truth that we are more than our history, our mistakes, or our circumstances, we are all, as Mary Poppins' ruler said, "practically perfect in every way"!!! How could we not dance, like David, with all our might...
Kate
Do you mean "ignorance, apathy and INTOLERANCE..."?
ReplyDeleteI love your blog and have found many healing and useful ideas in it. One day, when I first discovered the blog, I sat down and read the whole content of your blogs - from first to last - and enjoyed it immensely. You write beautifully and often your take on a word really helps me. The link between gratitude and appreciation was one such helpful idea, as was your interpretation of "fear of the Lord" as "transfixing your attention on God, to the exclusion of all else"
Thank you so much.
In love and gratitude from Amanda
Hi Amanda...I am honored to know that you have read the entire contents...thank you for letting me know that it has been helpful...it means the world to me.
ReplyDeleteActually I did mean "tolerance" (although I could actually add intolerance to the list)...I don't necessarily think of tolerance as always a good thing. When we are tolerating something we are often saying, "well, there are things I don't really like/love about you, but I can tolerate them/you in my life". I long to see us move beyond tolerance to real brotherly love. Love that doesn't tolerate, but understands...to love, not in spite of what is "not right/good/loveable/different" but instead of it. A love that sees above and beyond....
I have been tolerated...it's doens't feel great...
I think it's very cool that you picked up on my slipping in of that word...very very insightful.
if you ever want to talk about this idea...i'd love it.
Yes, I see what you mean about tolerance - putting up with something that is not great. Enduring rather than overcoming.
ReplyDeleteThanks again!
Amanda
But the "overcoming" is not about changing the thing that we think is "not that great"...it is about loving, loving, loving...not in spite of what we thought we needed to tolerate...but because it is who we are...it is loving not in spite of, but in stead of. It is the kind of love the Prodigal's father expressed...he didn't wait until hi son had walked, crawled, dragged himself all the way home and then looked to see if he had changed, repented, or overcome his sins...the father ran out to greet him "a great way off" threw his arms around his neck and kissed him...
ReplyDeletethat's the kind of love that I long to be...unconditionally...hugs, K
Yes, I can see what you are saying about loving past and through someone's faults, like light shines through and dissipates darkness. Unconditional LOVE not conditional or conditioned love, like or dislike.
ReplyDeleteI was really thinking of tolerating things in circumstances in the sense of "putting up with" or enduring instead of saying "no, I don't have to tolerate this," in the sense of resisting evil.
Amanda xxx