the more love you give away, the more love you will have...

Carrie Newcomer helps me cut to the chase so many times. Recently, she posted this quote from the later John O'Donohue in Anam Cara:

There is a lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition, there is no possessive-ness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.
 

How did Macca put it at the close of "Abbey Road?" And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make! And just for kicks - Paul, George and John - play three two-bar guitar solos each twice in the order noted above. It was the last song ever recorded by all the Beatles as a band and it gives shape and form to Paul's love couplet. They each received a whole lotta love because they each made a whole lotta love! In these later years, that's what I feel like I can do best: share a little goodness each day no matter where I am as a conscious, embodied prayer. Like ancient Israel's  psalmist sang:

O LORD, I am not proud; have no haughty looks.

I do not occupy myself with great matters, 

or with things that are too hard for me.

 But I still my soul and make it quiet,

like a child upon its mother's breast; 

my soul is quieted within me.

I know I pray - and post - this Psalm a lot. These haughty and agitated days cry out for another perspective. Something small and tender, something quiet and comforting. Last night, for the first time in ages, I watched the extended results of the Super Tuesday Democratic Primary results on TV. Candidly, as much as I value all those who put themselves on the line to advance the cause of justice and peace - from Bernie and Lizzie to Mike and Uncle Joe - I kept hearing the words of Macbeth:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

And I'd much rather hear The Beatles. Or Carrie Newcomer. Or John O'Donohue. Or Merton. Or Miles. Or Rohr. Or Krista Tippett. Or maybe just the rain coming down in waves, turning the backyard into mud in ways that anticipate this year's garden. This is one of the most important elections of my life time - so I read most of the important speeches online - and leave the talking heads to entertain themselves. Life is too short to indulge their "sound and fury." The 20th century poet, Medora C. Addison of Concord, MA, put it like this:

Now shall I store my soul with silent beauty, 

Beauty of drifting clouds and mountain heights, 

Beauty of sun-splashed hills and shadowed forests, 

Beauty of dawn and dusk and star-swept nights. 

Now shall I fill my heart with quiet music, 

Song of the wind across the pine-clad hill, 

Song of the rain and, fairer than all music, 

Call of the thrush when twilight woods are still. 

So shall the days to come be filled with beauty, 

Bright with the promise caught from eastern skies; 

So shall I see the stars when night is darkest, 

Still hear the thrush’s song when music dies.

Tomorrow I will write a sermon - the first in four years - in anticipation of being in worship with First Church, Williamstown on Sunday, March 15. Friday we will schlep down to Brooklyn Town to visit with loved ones and join Louie in worship as his choir sings at the family liturgy. (NOTE: Illness has put this on hold.) On Sunday we'll put finish up our native seed flower and vegetable orders. And then I am Ottawa bound on Monday for more meetings, but also to celebrate a community Eucharist for Lent and to participate in the spirituality committee of L'Arche Ottawa. By the time I return this time next week, I will be so ready to move some compost into the garden beds and start raking up muck. So, indeed, shall the days to come be filled with beauty.

In the kingdom of love there is no competition, 

there is no possessiveness or control. 

The more love you give away, the more love you will have.