Aloha,
I'm Reverend Cindy Palos.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Today is going to be all about love.
I have a wonderful love-filled Valentine's Day special for you.
It's going to be talking about why we are all part of this infinite love and how we can share it and how we can experience together.
I've got lots of great,
Great love poems.
I also have love meditations that we're going to be doing.
So I thank you so very much.
If you are able to be present,
I thank you very much.
It means the world to me that you're here.
And if you're not,
I will make sure that we can share this some other way later.
Because today is not only Valentine's Day,
It's kind of my pre-birthday.
Tomorrow's my birthday.
So having been born the day before Valentine's Day,
I always felt love was very important.
And that became even more important as I found the love present in that connection I found through meditation to God.
And that love is the agape love.
That love is the love that is all-inclusive,
Unconditional,
So powerful that has so many faces to it.
St.
Paul once commented that the greatest thing is love.
And of course,
That was one of the most powerful things he said.
I've seen many weddings as a minister.
And I have to say that that one quote from Corinthians of St.
Paul is the one that's most requested in weddings.
So he understood that that life's greatest truism,
Love is the most wonderful of all life's experiences.
Now you can have wisdom,
You can have a lot of wonderful things,
You can have fame,
But if you don't have that love,
The most important thing,
Love,
Then you'll be missing out on the greatest power in the universe.
And you know what,
There's so many different manifestations of love.
I wrote today a poem about this.
Love has infinite faces and so many different ways to teach us and to reach us what we need to understand,
To experience its grace.
For love is the greatest teacher.
Love can break our hearts.
Love can save our life.
It lifts us to the highest stars.
Love has so many faces.
And it always makes us feel that part of us has that longing to be revealed inside,
To be seen.
But always and forever,
There is this inner need to find a love that lasts from here through all eternity.
And you know,
It's waiting there inside in the heart where love resides.
And it saves us and it guides us to God,
The greatest love of all.
You know,
And there was another part of this that was really interesting as I was looking up the various great poems on love that had to do with agape love and spiritual love.
One of the great teachers,
Of course,
And another one that's used in lots of weddings,
Is from the prophet.
And that's one that is also really has the depths of what the many faces of love expressed are.
Because love does so much to change us.
And the prophet,
It says,
Speak to us of love.
That's what Alimitra speak to us of love and he raised his head and looked upon the people and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said,
When love beckons,
Follow him.
Those ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him.
Though the sword hidden among his opinions may wound.
And when he speaks to you,
Believe in him.
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you,
So shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth,
So is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses the tenderest up branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He needs you until you are pliant.
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire that you may become sacred bread for God s feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart.
And in that knowledge become a fragment of life s heart.
But in your fear you would seek only love s peace and love s pleasure.
Then it is better for you to cover your nakedness and pass out of love s threshing floor into the seasonless world where you shall laugh but not all of your laughter and weep but not all of your tears.
While I was doing this I had a little research into Khalil Gibran s life.
And Khalil Gibran had a person who was backing him and supported him.
She was I think 10 or 12 years older than him.
And she saw his value.
And at first she was just the backer and supporting him with money.
But then he came to love her.
And she said no,
You have a great future ahead of you.
You re a wonderful,
Wonderful poet and I would only limit you.
So I am not going he asked her at one point to marry him.
And he she said no to him.
Because she understood that he had other things to do.
And that when she was older he would be younger and there were many more things he could do in his life.
But he always did write love poems and appreciate her and love her.
It s quite a love story,
Interesting story.
I had no idea of.
But love does have so many faces that we experience.
William Butler Yeats said,
When you are old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire,
Take down this book and slowly read and dream of the soft look your eyes once had and their shadows deep.
How many loved your moments of grace and loved your beauty with love false and true?
But one man loved your beauty and the pilgrim s soul in you and loved the sorrows of your changing face and bending down beside the glowing bars.
Murmur a little sadly how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid his face amid a crown of stars.
There s so many aspects to love but one thing is important to always remember.
The greatest source of love is that love inside of you.
And when we love,
We love that source of love in others.
We re loving the God in us as the God in others.
That love of God is the greatest love and if you understand that all things including love come from that one original source of God,
Then you can always return to that love and always be fed by that love and always be healed by that love no matter how many times you get hurt.
And life is going to bring you that threshing and it s going to many times hurt you.
Believe me,
I understand that.
I ve gone through this and I know so many others have.
This is universal,
That experience of loving and losing.
But if we always return to love,
Always return to love and that takes forgiveness,
That takes understanding,
That takes patience,
That takes an enduring love that lasts.
And if we understand that love exists in both the seen and the unseen and that love is the source of the God that is present that we can love in so many ways.
We can love it for the beauty of nature,
We can love it for the beauty of a baby and the love there in a child s eyes.
We understand that it is both present in the physical and also symbolical way.
And we each will have a karma and many,
Many times love will bring such deep karmic influences in our life and possibly lifetime after lifetime after lifetime will work that karma out in so many ways until we understand that forgiveness and we understand how important it is that we learn those lessons that love brings us sometimes in many hard ways.
We understand that existence of love is that perfect manifestation of primal light energy,
The first cause and we understand that light within us from our soul at work and our love which creates a love light that shines through us in so many different ways,
In so many different ways throughout all of our life.
E.
E.
Cummings,
One of the great poets wrote,
I carry your heart with me.
I carry it in my heart.
I am never without it anywhere I go.
You go my dear.
Whatever is done by only me is your doing my darling.
I fear no fate for you are my fate,
My sweet.
I want no world for beautiful.
You are my world,
My true.
And it s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing.
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows.
Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life which grows higher than soul can hope or a mind can hide and this is the wonder that s keeping the stars apart.
I carry your heart.
I carry it in my heart.
Again,
That s another one that has been so often spoken at weddings and it s so true and where is that heart of hearts that you see in that kind of love?
It s the heart that you see through all of the illusions and the true heart and soul of another.
Now there was many,
Many great mystics who understood this love and I think one of the great mystics who wrote the best poetry was Rumi.
Rumi was a mystic who understood union with God and that ultimate love,
That joining of the one heart of all of God s heart within his own heart and he wrote most all of his poems,
Most all of his beautiful teachings came through that symbolic meaning of that love that he had as the love of God.
And here s one of Rumi s wonderful ones that I love.
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you.
Not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don t finally meet somewhere.
They re in each other all along.
And again,
That is true,
Right?
I mean if you think about that love within you and that love within another and also even karmic love,
How many times maybe you ve been life after life after life with your soulmate,
But sometimes in so many different forms,
Maybe perhaps one time as a lover,
Maybe as a husband or wife,
Maybe as a child,
So many forms,
So many ways of love being present.
Rumi also wrote,
There s some kiss we want with our whole lives,
The touch of spirit on the body.
Sea water begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily,
How passionately it needs some wild darling.
At night,
I open my window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Ah,
Right?
I mean isn t love beautiful?
I mean love is so,
So wonderful.
I love love in all of its different forms.
I wrote this one yesterday.
Here s to an enduring love.
The breadth and depth that lasts throughout all the years.
A love to help when tears appear.
Through the good times and the bad.
Connected.
Beyond all reasons,
Through all the seasons and the changes that you ll find.
Accepting who you are.
Whether near or far,
That promise of the soul to let each other know enduring love survives.
Even when you get old.
The gift of that enduring love myth may sometimes falter and fail,
For it must be nurtured in so many ways so it can thrive and grow.
Through all of the challenges that life takes.
Adheres to that enduring love.
Not the spark that lasts just a short while.
But a very deep partnership that gets you through all time.
Ah,
To let each other know how important it is to know enduring love survives.
So my friends,
I appreciate you understanding how important this love is.
This agape love.
And let s just take a few moments.
A few moments to breathe into this wonderful love.
This love inside.
This unconditional love that God brings.
Take a breath of this love.
Just breathe it in.
Breathe it deeply in.
Breathe it out.
Breathe it into your heart and soul.
Let it fill every single part of your body with a love light.
Every cell.
Everything now enlightened in that radiant love light.
So that it extends out beyond your body.
Far,
Far out.
Six feet,
More feet.
Out to all of your community.
Let that love light shine forth to all of where you live.
To the country,
To the world.
Let that whole energy of that love enlighten the world right now.
And let them feel that love that is God s love present right here.
And now,
That infinite and unconditional agape love.
Go into the heart of hearts.
God s heart.
Go deep,
Deep,
Deep into the roots of all love.
That love that you were born with.
The love that you always are.
The love that heals.
The love that forgives.
The love that regenerates,
That renews.
Let yourself bathe in this beautiful awakening of that agape love.
Breathe it in and feel it coming through you.
Feel the energy alive right now in you.
Let it be there.
Let it be present.
And know that love is right there.
Always the greatest love of all.
Right there in your heart of heart.
Always wishing you to be loving.
Always wishing you to be loved.
Always wishing you to wake up to know that you are the beloved one of God.
You are love here in the present form.
Meant to share this love in your life and experience this love with others.
What a wonderful gift this is.
What a great gift.
Let yourself bathe in this love and accept it,
Absorb it,
Be it,
Believe it.
I'm going to end with the Aramaic version of the Lord's Prayer which says it so beautifully.
Father,
Mother of the Cosmos,
Shimmering light of all,
Focus your light within us as we breathe your holy breath.
Enter the sanctuary of our heart.
Uniting within us the sacred rays of your power and beauty.
Let your heart's desire unite heaven and earth through our sacred union.
Help us to fulfill what lies within the circle of our lives today.
Forgive our secret fears as we freely choose to forgive the secret fears of others.
Let us not enter forgetfulness tempted by false appearances for from your astonishing fire comes the eternal song which sanctifies all renewed eternally in our lives and throughout creation.
We seal these words in our hearts committed in trust and faith.
And I have many different teachings here on Inside Timer.
I think of about 50 different courses on aspects of God and love and light.
And I thank you so very much for sharing your love now and always.
That love is always something that we can return to.
God bless you.
I love you.
