May 30, 2006

I Am Love

I put a notice on my front door the other day. I'd come home from a run and I felt that something was missing; so I placed there a piece of card upon which, in ninety-point, bold, Arial font, there is written, LOVE LIVES HERE NOW. When I return home, it reminds me of what I am. It also sends a message to others about myself; something which I choose to do. But most importantly, it means something deeper: it means that love lives in the here, and in the now. On one level all those words mean the same thing: love, life, here, and now; any one of those is the way, but the words synergize with each other and mean so much more than any one of them would do on its own. Or perhaps, as friend told me, it will simply confuse the postman.

I am a little boy; that's all I am. I realized recently that I'm just a sweet, innocent little boy. I'm attracted to certain people and I want to spend time with them; they seem to be people who love themselves and so are able to love me. I get shy around girls. Sometimes I need to snuggle up and have my head stroked. Sometimes I feel scared. A lot of the time I go around feeling really happy and excited about life. When people say unkind things to me, about me, I feel really hurt. I'm scared of being rejected, I'm scared of being abandoned, and I really appreciate people who love me.

I learned to be ashamed of this little boy. He is really just love. He loves himself and so is able to love others. But somehow this little boy learned to be ashamed of himself: to be ashamed of love. It's so tragic that I went around feeling ashamed of myself and hating myself and being embarrassed about myself. I was ashamed of this sweet little boy who is pure love. I didn't really want to look at him because I felt so ashamed. But I've come to learn that there's nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, many people have seen this little boy, and they love him a lot. The love that I am was invalidated and covered with shame when I was a kid. Now the goddess is invaliding the shame and once more revealing the love that I really am.

Someone said to me recently that I have the heart of a four-year-old, the body of a twenty-four-year-old, and the mind of a fifty-four-year-old. How lucky! That is very cool. I am certainly grateful.

There are those who use me as a mirror. Some see their darkness in me and these people seem very unlike children, except when they "lose it". I am simply wandering through life filled with happiness and they tell me that I need professional help for my pain and darkness. There are few who have introspected as intensely as I have, something which I continue to do. And I am finding only love and light under the shame. There are others who see their own beauty reflected in me.

Everything that I see outside of myself is a reflection of my inner reality. So when I think that people hate me, or perhaps I should say fear me, does that mean that I hate and fear myself? Yes it does: for as long as I stick around to be hated and feared.

I sat next to an amazing eighty-year-old woman yesterday. She talked about how ashamed she felt; of feeling like a lost little girl in the street, hoping that she would see someone she knew, and feeling confused. I could see this little girl and she was so beautiful. I could see even more clearly how shame is a tragic prison of self-hatred; an unfortunate legacy that binds a free bird with the idea that it cannot fly because it has wings. Shame was the false parent which taught me to reject the love that I am. People stumble around all their lives seeking the sweetness that they are, looking anywhere but in themselves, and hiding what they seek from themselves and from others. Shame is the last gate to heaven.

When I walk along the road, I find myself balancing on the curb-stones. Sometimes I wonder what people think of me; I think that I must look strange. But I am not strange, I am a little boy. And sometimes I sing as I walk along. When I sing, I become even more of a little boy. I become pure love when I sing. So I'll continue to sing because I love to.

I don't know for sure if other adults are really little children although I do often see little children in them. I've also noticed that a lot of people spend much of the time not behaving like little children and then suddenly they become like scared or angry little children without realizing it; like the stuff they do in cars with hand signs and the physical violence and the arguing. This acting "grown-up" doesn't seem to be working so well.

The universe is a pretty hospitable place it turns out. I found out recently that there are beautiful twenty-year-old women driving around in new Ferraris picking up guys and taking them back to their penthouse apartments for wild sex. This really happens! Do you wonder how I know this? I know this because I met one a couple of weeks ago. I didn't have sex with her; I'm married; I just talked with her. But isn't it amazing? What else could there be right under your nose which you're doing without, or slaving-away for?

Grace isn't something that we get given a little of every now and then. Grace is unconditional love; it is acceptance and forgiveness all ways and always. Grace is being given exactly what you want. And the thing is that grace is all there is. It's not that I got lucky and had some grace a few years ago; I am continuously in grace; and so are you; we all are. The only problem was that we couldn't see it because we had our eyes shut.

For me, growing up isn't about changing. It isn't a process of turning from a child into an adult. Growing up is the remembering of a relationship between the true father, the father inside of me, and the little son. It's not the son writing this, it's the father. He's listening to the son and he's writing for him. He's using this mind to translate it into English and to operate these fingers. This mind: how I appreciate it; since it has stopped trying to be the master it has become so much more capable. It's a beautiful mind.

By why does the mirror smell of fish? This is a question that passed through my mind yesterday morning and was quickly followed by another, perhaps more important, question: why am I smelling the mirror? Perhaps I was trying to find out if it was dirty and needed cleaning. And it certainly did after I'd pressed my nose against it. I assume that there really was a good reason. I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt.

Isn't that a beautiful phrase? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. It's saying that you doubt something and that I doubt something and that our doubts oppose one another. And it says that there is some benefit to one of the parties in choosing one perspective over the other. It also says that I will give you that benefit. How generous; and how amazing that all this can be captured in such a simple phrase. How often have you used that phrase without being fully aware of what it really means?

A little boy presses his forehead in reverence to the lotus feet of a father whose body is as long as eternity and as deep as infinity. He does not know how great he is as he sits there calmly and watches his perfection. At the same time, a father watches a little boy whose innocence and sweetness is pricelessly exquisite; he does not know how utterly charming he is. The father presses his forehead in reverence to his little lotus feet. We are one.