All We Need Is Love(…..and Law,…..and Truth)

As I’ve progressed through my life I’ve realized certain things that seemed self-evident actually require further exposition and explanation. Growing up as a child of the 60’s and the 70’s many of the people of my generation became very acquainted with the phrase, “All you need is Love.” It was the height of the hippie era and life actually seemed quite simple and direct with that wonderful appealing mantra. “Yes, all we need is Love and the world will work, the world will be better, our Universe will be Grand.” An old rock group “The Beatles” even had a song called “All You Need Is Love.” I want to abandon, change, or modify that singular concept.

I now believe that we should actually expand that Ideal to include Law and Truth. A trilogy of Ideals that are all completely intertwined and are in fact ONE IDEAL.

LAW: Somehow, someway the Universe needs, wants or has A STRUCTURE. It has a bottom line, it has a remedial and corrective force in our lives that propels us ever upward toward greater and greater goodness. We can call this Man-made Law, Natural Law, or Karmic Law.

I believe that Man-made Law is like a reflection in a pool of water. Man-made Law is just a mere watery reflection of God’s Law. In the end it is found wanting. It’s less than perfect and in fact seems to rely quite a bit upon punishment instead of remedial, corrective teaching. Still, temporarily, it’s the best that we have and the best that we can currently understand.

More attuned to God’s Laws and acting more as a true “mirror” is Natural Law. Most of this is observable by mankind in his everyday environment, i.e. Nature’s Law. When we look at our external world we find the discoverer of real world Laws: Newton’s law of universal gravitation, Newton’s law of heat conduction, Gauss’s law for magnetism, Faraday’s law of induction, Faraday’s law of electrolysis, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion.

If I understand these correctly, most of these laws are immutable. I can’t fly, I can’t go backwards in time, I can’t create a perpetual motion machine. However, if I work within the laws, I can fly in an airplane, I can learn from history, and I can become a steward of God’s earth and energy.

Last is Karmic Law. True Law. The total embodiment of Law. The will of God made manifest. What goes around, comes around. What you sow , you also shall reap. Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you. The Golden Rule. This Karma is both a backward correction and a forward momentum. It is a Universal Mill Grindstone that grinds down to make a renewed substance in refined Spiritual Flour. It also works like a Universal Weaving Loom that is constantly creating new weaves of Love and Opportunity. The one(the mill) is wearing and grinding down the supposedly useless weeds into a Renewable Spiritual Nourishment while the other(the loom) is building newer and finer tapestries of Spiritual Cohesion and Fabric.

This is why it’s important to understand science, it’s describing our world.

This is a good point also to show the main connecting point between two supposedly opposite institutions, Religion and Science. In various degrees both are interested in the…..

TRUTH: Both Religion and Science want to know how the world works. While religion frequently expounds on the truth, science tries to discover it. For one, it’s self-evident and for the other it’s a frontier. While one(religion) may appear delusional the other(Science) can appear as Godless. I don’t just gobble up the dictates of religious authorities and I also don’t believe in a world of just rocks, stars, and DNA. In actuality we are all trying to find the Truth whether we are religious scholars or scientists. We all want answers that really are self-evident and that are real.

As I expounded in my earlier post, Truth is like light. It broadcasts and illuminates everything everywhere. We all seek the truth and we all have various ways of concealing our own falsehoods. Besides the song “All We Need Is Love,” one the songwriters of the Beatles, John Lennon, wrote another great song of Spiritual Ideals called “Gimme Some Truth.” The song is really a plea for honesty, sincerity, earnestness and justice. It’s a simple plea from a single man on the state of the world.

Part of my point here is not any exaltation of the The Beatles or John Lennon but to illustrate that these ideas and Ideals are actually very common. These Ideals are sought out among Rock Stars, Religious Scholars, Scientists and everyone. Everyone wants to know the Truth. Everyone knows a little bit of truth.

LOVE: I could write a ton of words about this subject but it’s actually our greatest life lesson. It will permeate every facet of our lives as Mother, Son, Spouse, and Elder. We will each change seats in our lives and take up the different positions to learn new facets of Love and Connection. As I stumble through this life I keep finding myself in each of those different positions and marvel at the thought of each new assignment. “Oh, this time I’m the Good Son, now I’m the Good Dad, soon I’ll be the Good Grandpa(I hope I can do it).” Try as I might to write it down and capture it in a phrase or a word, it just doesn’t translate, it has to be lived.

These three Ideas are actually ONE IDEAL that are all absolutely interconnected and inseparable.

To understand how these truly do fit together we need to understand that actually each precept overlaps the other:

We can be responsible, structured, scientific and lawful and still be unloving.

We can be Truthful and still be a loveless being.

We can be Truthful and still be irresponsible, unruly and unlawful

We can Love another but still be unfaithful and untruthful.

We can Love another but still be irresponsible, unruly and unlawful

Although I could probably make an analytical Venn diagram of these three components I think that the point is made that these three are all part of ONE IDEAL. To have one without the other is a short selling of Spirituality And God.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend upon the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving.

– Albert Einstein

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Love

This is the third of a series of posts with a soon to come final summation.  The first two posts dealt with Law and Truth.  This post is about Love.  I should say that I am no expert on Love. In fact, Love is the principle of what people are supposed to learn from this earthly experience.  Again though, it’s not mine to own but I have some things to share.

I have three ideas of Love to share here.

First Part. I’ve read a book called “The Art Of Loving”, by the renowned psychologist Erich Fromm(http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Loving-Erich-Fromm/dp/0061129739/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336741193&sr=1-1).

As I pondered this great book by Erich Fromm I realized that love as we commonly understand it has primary and secondary meanings.   Usually we imagine Love as a couples romantic Love or family Love. In Mr. Fromms book he highlights other loves of Brotherly Love, Motherly Love, Self-Love, and Love of God.  Even two of these are Family love.

I pondered his ideas and realized that there was in fact an infinite or near infinite variety of ways to Love.  I realized that Love should be practiced in any interconnectable capacity.   I realized that there are different degrees and levels of Love to be practiced and used by all of us.

Sticking with the idea of family love I could see that we should strive to be good and loving Mothers and Fathers.

I could see that we should be good and loving Daughters and Sons.

We should strive to be good Aunts and Uncles, Nieces and Nephews.

We should strive to be good and loving Grandmas and Grandpas, Grandchildren and Cousins.

While we all know of blood ties and relationships to various family members, I don’t think we understood the opportunities and responsibilities of loving all within the family(In certain ethnic families this is automatic but here in America we often have far flung and separated family ties that inhibit our love instinct) .

If we expand the Universal Net Of Love we can see that we can be loving individuals in all of our relationships.

Are we good Neighbors?

Are we good Co-workers?

Are we good Teachers and/or Students?

Are we good Citizens?

These last four examples are other ways in which we wouldn’t ordinarily think of these relationships as Love situations.  But, if handled deftly and with awareness instead of mechanical and  arbitrary motions, a greater understanding of the world can be known.

Part of the point here is that we tend to think of love as high and mighty, big and important without realizing the true Love opportunity unfolds around us everyday and in every way.

Second Part. My friend Ed and I were talking one day and he shared with me the true nature of the love for our respective children.   He explained to me that, “the kids and teenagers don’t even know how much we love them.  They think that love is birthday parties and teen age infatuation.”  Being a new parent at the time I just nodded my head, “Yea, you’re right.” He continued on, “If you think of the love that we have for our kids you can see that it’s a pure Love…..it’s not romantic, it’s not sexual….it’s not driven. It flows and falls off of us to our kids.   There is nothing we wouldn’t do for our kids. Nothing.”   I sat up now and realized exactly what he was talking about, “Yea, that’s absolutely true. I’ve never really loved in this way before.”   When Ed left later I pondered his message for a long, long time because I realized that it was true.  The Love that my wife and I have for our kids is totally different from anything I had ever experienced. It is in fact one of the most pure and selfless loves we can give.

Third Part. In my late twenties, my mother and I were talking one day and the subject was about a local boy who had made a big mistake in his life and everyone knew it. His actions made him the local pariah.  He was being scorned very much by our local village. Unfortunately, no one wanted to know him or even be around him.   I felt sorry for him(bleeding heart liberal) but understood the hatred of the community.   The amazing part of this whole story was that the Mother of this boy was absolutely certain that he didn’t do these things. She was absolutely defending him to the bitter end. This was even more confounding in the community because all the facts indicted and convicted him. It appeared to be a tragedy upon a tragedy.  Soon the local people couldn’t stand to be around her either.  It was a loyalty and love I couldn’t understand.

It wasn’t until I became a parent and I reflected on my friend Ed and his story that I finally understood.  The mothers love was absolutely Unconditional.  I realized too that this must be how God loves me! More and more I realized the absolute vehicle of motherhood confers a certain love that is magnified a hundredfold over our other understandings.

When I think of the function of Motherhood and how pre-life decisions are made I wonder how we could ever do what we do?

I have this image of God speaking to a soul/spirit and conferring with them of their spiritual curriculum this time around,  “Angel #99, I have a special mission for you this time to fulfill one of my main objectives.   This time I want you to be Steve’s mother.”

Angel #99 says, “But why? What’s in it for me?” God gives an infinite love and sternful expression all at the same time and says,  “Your job this time is to give absolute, unconditional love to Steve.  You’ll care for him, cloth him, feed him, and defend him no matter what. You’ll love him the same way I love you, with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul.  Any questions?”

“Yea,” Angel #99 says, “why do I have to do it. I don’t even like him.  How can I do this?   Isn’t this asking a lot of me?  Maybe someone else can do it.”

God laughs and says, “You and Steve are perfectly suited for one another.  Your respective life lessons go hand in glove.  You needn’t worry, the chemical, biological and instinctual feelings will take over.   Soon….very soon…you will see what I see in Steve and you will also see more clearly exactly what I see in YOU.  I’m not asking you to do anything different or even asking the impossible. I’m just asking you to love someone like I love you.”

Angel #99 shuffles the feet, flaps the wings, and says, “In God we trust, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Happy Mothers Day,

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. 
               – Abraham Lincoln