“I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places
Lookin' for love in too many faces
Searchin' their eyes
Lookin' for traces of what I'm dreaming of
Hoping to find a friend and a lover
I'll bless the day I discover another heart
Lookin' for love”
I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with this song by Johnny Lee. Maybe one or two of us found ourselves singing it on Valentines Day last Friday, or maybe the Roy Orbison song “Only the Lonely”
I’m sure a lot of us can identify. Although sometimes maybe we find ourselves looking for love in all the right places. For love is all around us
“I feel it in my fingers
I feel it in my toes
Love is all around me
And so the feeling grows”
Sometime you know we find love in all the right places…
Last Monday we conducted the memorial service of Margaret Williams. Margaret was the organist and Dunham Road from 1989 until 2024. It was a beautiful service celebrating Margaret’s life and the love she shared. Many old friends joined on Zoom and many spoke of her and the love they shared in the chapel. There was most definitely love found that day and in that place. We were looking for love in the right place.
I have conducted several funeral services for members of both congregations this winter. It has been quite a tough time all in all. That said it has been wonderful to share in the love experienced, the love they shared and the legacy of love that each person has left behind.
Many folk spoke at Margaret’s service, one group particularly stood out, they were several members of a youth theatre group that Margaret worked with. They were all adults and parents themselves now. Margaret had worked with their children too, a second generation. It was deeply moving to listen to the love they felt and shared with Margaret. A wonderful heart felt legacy.
The service took a lot out of me personally. The amount of grief in recent weeks has taken something of a toll. After the service two friends contacted me and I joined them with our dogs. We shared a couple of hours together, just being silly and having fun. Just talking utter rubbish. Such friendship is one of the highest forms of love. The ancient Greeks called this “Philia Love”. Something I have been enjoying a lot recently. A form of love I find in all the right places. I have been blessed with such love all my life.
As I was thinking of the different people that spoke at Margaret’s memorial service, I thought to myself how they sounded like beautiful love letters. They were the sweetest Valentines. They were not of romantic love of course, but deep, deep love in many forms. Margaret had left her love letters in their lives; they were her legacy and the words they spoke were love letters spoken and shared.
I myself have been receiving some love letters this week. Now before anyone gets excited they are not of the romantic kind. That said they are beautiful all the same. Last Sunday I talked about “Snowdrops of Hope” I made my weekly video on the subject too. Well in response a whole host of folk have been sending me pictures of snowdrops all week long. Just beautiful love letters that have been dropped in my inbox.
Yeh I have been looking for love in all the right places.
It brought to my mind the following from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd
by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I wonder what love letters we leave for others to pick up. I wonder if we see that same love in the faces of the people we meet. Do we see something of God in each and everyone of them?
This all got me thinking about how we see one another. Not so much our loved ones and friends, at least not only them. How do we see one another? Do we always see each other as kin, as formed from the same spirit, made with same flesh and having the same beating heart? Do we always show another form of love, the love expressed at the core of the religious traditions, towards one another. This is Agape Love, selfless love, which is an empathic love, without prejudice towards everyone. This maybe the most challenging love of all, especially to those we see as different somehow, as not kin. Human history, religious history, is littered with violence towards those we see as different. People have preyed on this suspicion of the other, on stranger danger thorough the ages. It still happens today sadly. In fact I am hearing its rage and cry ever more loudly in recent times.
Hate, not love being found in all the wrong places.
Do we see all people as kin, do we offer kindness to all people without prejudice, or are we suspicious of those that we see as different? I am sure that everyone can think of times when they have not lived up to the sacred command that we love one another.
This brings to my mind the parable of “The Good Samaritan” found in the 10th chapter of Luke’s Gospel vv 24-37, shared earlier. It begins with: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’”
The parable is about paying attention and acting from Agape love. For love is an action, it’s about what we do and do not do. It is through our loving actions that we create our legacy; these are our love letters. In the story both a priest and Levite go by and they both see an injured half dead man on the side of the road, but they walked on by, they passed on the other side of the road. Then a Samaritan (who would be the enemy of the traveller from Jerusalem to Jericho) also saw him and when he saw him, he was moved to action and not only helped him he brought him to place of safety and paid for his boardings and lodging etc. He wanted no recognition or thanks for his actions, he was motivated purely by compassion, this is pure altruism, this is agape love.
Now I think this story is teaching something very simple and vital, each of us is capable of all the actions that take place here. We are all capable of walking on by and we are all capable of being Good Samaritans. We can all be good neighbours. I believe that to see the world through the hopefulness of our potential goodness is what kin-ship, radical love, accepting all, building the kin-dom of love here is about. It’s about seeing the good and becoming the good, so that others can see it too. These are the love letters, that we can leave behind. This is a legacy for all to read.
Sadly, so often in life we do not see one another as kin, we see the other as different and not part of the one human family. The religious traditions at their worst have often perpetuated this, but it isn’t the essence of their teachings, just the way that some have taught and practiced. The first book of the Bible Genesis in chapter 1 depicts humanity being created in God’s image. So, if one is to be a follower of the book then surely every act done by one person to another is done by and to a person made in that image, that all are part of the one human family. There is a similar suggestion in the Qur’an which in the fourth chapter declares 'Oh people, be conscious of your Lord who created you from a single soul and created from her, her mate; and from them, many men and women scattered far and wide.' Thus, suggesting a deep unity within the one human family and that all people are not only created by God but are descended from a single soul.
Buddhism extends this familiarity beyond merely humanity but to all sentient beings. Seeing all individual beings as being like waves on the ocean. Although each wave has a sense of its own separateness (its 'lesser self'), it is better understood as part of the ocean (its 'greater self'). Suggesting that the key is to awaken to the larger truth that not only are we a part of the ocean but that we are in fact in essence the ocean. Or to paraphrase Jesus “What you do to the least of them you do to me. This is more than interconnection it is deep kin-ship, in the family of life itself.
We are all part of the one family of life. We share a common heritage, but not only that, we share a common destiny too. We are deeply interconnected, in deep kin-ship.
Love of self, love of neighbors, and love of God are the foundational stones of the great religious traditions, the Golden Rule of Compassion is there at the core of them all. A classic example of this comes from the following story from the Jewish tradition:
“Standing on One Foot”
A man came to talk with Rabbi Shamai, one of the most famous of all the rabbis, nearly as famous as Rabbi Hillel.
"I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew," said the man. "But I don't have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot."
The Torah is the most important Jewish book there is, and this crazy man wanted to learn it while standing on one foot? Why, people spent years learning the Torah; it was not something you can learn in five minutes! Rabbi Shamai grew angry with this man, and he pushed the man away using a builder's yardstick he happened to be holding in his hand.
The man hurried away, and found Rabbi Hillel. "I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew," said the man. "But I don't have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot."
"Certainly," said Rabbi Hillel. "Stand on one foot."
The man balanced on one foot.
"Repeat after me," said Rabbi Hillel. "What is hateful to you, don't do that to someone else."
The man repeated after Rabbi Hillel, "What is hateful to me, I won't do that to someone else."
"That is the whole law," said Rabbi Hillel. "All the rest of the Torah, all the rest of the oral teaching, is there to help explain this simple law. Now, go and learn it so it is a part of you."
Simple I know but not easy, unfortunately there is a tendency to fear the other, otherness. We do not always see ourselves in the people we meet face to face, especially if we perceive some aspect of their humanity as different.
Fear can eat away at the very foundations of our humanity. Fear can block us from the love at the core of our being, the love present in life. We can become afraid to risk ourselves in love; we can become afraid of what love can teach us and turn away.
Love is a universal principle, Universalism preaches the Gospel of Love for all, there is no partiality in such love. This is Agape Love. It offers an ever widening, deepening love, it preaches what Russell Miller has titled “the larger hope”. It is a love that embraces all life, engages in every aspect of existence, a universal love. It holds out its loving arms and says come as you are, exactly as you are but remain open to loving transformation.
I am by instinct a universalist, although I am imperfect one. Fear has at times taken over me, fear of the other, fear of the stranger, I am as human as any of us. I have rejected the call for love, because I was afraid of becoming. I have been like the priest and Levite in the classic parable of the “Good Samaritan”, I have walked by on the other side because I was afraid of getting caught up in the suffering of others. I have averted my eyes, I have been unable to see what is in front of me. This is very human. I attempt each day to begin again in love, I return to love.
We can all begin again in love. We all know fear at times. We turn away from suffering. We all feel fear of the unknown, those we consider different. The truth is though that we all belong to the one human family. Love calls us to recognize that in each other and of course in ourselves, so that we can live by the sacred command to love one another, including ourselves.
In every moment of our lives we are creating and leaving a legacy for those who share this time and those who follow in this beautiful co-creation that is life. Each moment we leave behind us letters that those who follow will then pick up and read them and be influenced. So let us ensure that the letters we leave behind are letters of love and not of indifference, letters of Hope and not of Despair.
“I was lookin' for love in all the right places
Lookin' for love in everybody’s faces
Seeing ourselves in their eyes
Lookin' for traces of the Divine
in the letters that I find and all the love letters that I leave behind,
For others to one day, for others one day to find.
Always lookin' for love,
May you find it too”
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"
Wonderful ❤️
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