FROM THE BOUNDARY: Love actually – a sequel
Thanks to Covid Wimp, for the first time in years I’ll be ritually watching the 2003 film, ‘Love Actually’, at home in St. George this Christ Mass, not at home in my little Welsh cottage by the sea. My Wife says she can pull it from the Internet. There’s a 2017 sequel too. Wonderful! Love ACTUALLY. Can there be a more life giving, divine heart to all we celebrate now?
“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:14). “Above all, maintain constant love for one another” (1 Pet. 4:8). “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:14). “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech but in truth and action” (I John 3:18). If I “do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). And then Kabir: “More than all else do I cherish at heart that love which makes me to live a limitless life in this world. It is like the lotus, which lives in the water and blooms in the water: yet the water cannot touch its petals…” A “limitless” life. Is that you? It should be, for you too are the Christ child.
But first the ‘outer’. Midnight in Bethlehem. We’ve walked the six miles or so from Jerusalem in the darkness, uphill, and found the stable. There the kings and shepherds, the animals, and you and me. We had faith, didn’t we? Despite all our doubts and fears, we remained true to our hearts. It’s not a bundle of creeds and dogmas, faith. No. It’s our commitment ever to listen to our inner voice, a voice which tells us to make the divine real. It’s our spiritual strength. Despite all the fears and frustrations of our lives, it never finally leaves us. And it’s brought us here to Bethlehem, to witness, yet again, the birth, the rebirth, of love. It’s a love we gift to others whenever we say ‘I’m with you, for you.’ Broken hearts aren’t peculiar to us. Shepherds and kings suffer them too.
It’s a strange combination in this stable isn’t it? We’re all here in the name of love. One love. Love actually. Shepherds and kings. Rich and poor. White, black and olive skinned. British and Barbadian. Straight and gay. Mankind is here for love. It’s the one thing which says we’re human beings. And it looks for nothing in return. It makes no demands, shuns all expectations. It’s called the Christ consciousness. Now a little closer. The birth of the Holy Babe was not just a historical event. It was an eternal blessing, of love born into the world. That love is you and me. Look into the face of the babe. Who do you see? Jesus, yes. Look again. It’s you. The babe has your face. The Christ nature has been born in you. That love is your birthright. It’s your gift to yourself and the world. It’s not just a one-off each year. Whenever love is given, a new birthing takes place as the Christ consciousness realises itself in each of us. Then we’re both authors and messengers. Then we really become children of Jesus. Your eyes, mouths and hands are his – and your hearts. Don’t just ‘be’. BECOME. With Kabir: “Look within, and behold how the moon-beams of the Hidden One shine in you.”
As we move towards the birth of the Holy One, know that it’s time for renewal – of the Christ consciousness within ourselves. It’s time for awareness of the special gifts that only we have, of that light which only we bring to the world. Wake up to yourself, to your true nature. For too long we’ve been made to see ourselves as beggars paying lip-service to a gift dispenser. It’s time we knew it’s we who are the gift.
Go safely, then – until the next time.
John Bradburne, from the boundary: “God’s love within you is your native land. So seek none other, never more depart. For you are homeless save God keeps your heart.”