Expression of Love

Express: To show, manifest, or reveal. 

The topic this morning turned and twisted, dove deep and came up for air, floated way up high in the sky before settling on the idea of God and the meaning of love.  This sounds way more complicated than it ended up being.  It was great hearing people opine and drift on the nature of love and how it relates to a relationship with a Higher Power.

There's a famous scripture which states that God is love: "God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."  I talked to my longtime sponsor every day when he was bedridden, dying of cancer.  I swear that dude had one foot in this world and one foot in the next because he was coming up with some heavy stuff, otherworldly, ineffable stuff.  He really got focused on the idea that God was simply an expression of pure love.  I liked that he used the term "expression."  That made sense to me.  God manifesting God's essence through something in reach of all of us.

I often think of my tight-assed, religious, conservative, anal-retentive German family, deeply religious but one that considered love as a very official, prescribed thing - you loved your family, God, a significant other, and maybe a football team or two, but that was it.  In Alcoholics Anonymous I've come to embrace love as a living entity with all kinds of nuance and depth and intensity.  Some people I've loved for a long time and some not so long; I'm sure of my love quickly with some and after a lengthy marination with others; and some people have been steadfast in my mind while others come and go.  I don't think I ever stop loving someone I love but I can drift back a bit, be more detached, when people change or disappoint me or disappoint me after changing, which everyone will do, from time to time.  We are, of course, all flawed human beings.

The funny thing, of course, is that I don't really like anyone.

The woman next door got a rescue dog a few weeks ago, a street dog from Mexico.  I've long believed that if you want to see love in action hang around with some animals.  I form strong connections with animals pretty quickly and this dog is totally devoted to me.  If our neighbor lets the dog out on the porch it sits there and looks at our door until I come over.  You can see the love expressed when she sees me coming over.

I'm loved!  I get to love!