Sunday, September 14, 2008

Choosing Love

What Is Our Center About?

Several years ago, I was walking down a narrow street in a city far away. I was a stranger there on business and there was a palpable tension. It was a city where recently there had been violence and everyone there knew from the frequent presence of soldiers and police that this was not a peaceful place. Even though I wanted to enjoy my time there, I couldn’t help glancing nervously around, keeping defensive vigilance and feeling concern as I walked.

I was passing two women talking, one an older woman looked beyond her friend and looked directly at me. She smiled at me. It wasn’t that polite “I’m a nice non-threatening person” smile. It was a smile of someone who sends out love—powerful, delighted, and personal. It was for me and meant for me. From twenty-five feet away I felt impacted and changed. I felt that love from an old woman I did not know, a person I have never spoken a word to.

I became aware that I was no longer afraid. I was walking in a world where love existed. I felt my heart open, grateful, full. I was at peace. I no longer looked at the people around me as possible threats, but rather as people. We were all just people there, with our concerns, our schedules and our destinations. The difference was, I suddenly was not absorbed in my fear, my safety, protecting my world from them. I was no longer contributing fear and separation to the world that existed around me as I walked down that street. I was contributing peace. My mind was at peace with the world I was in. I was aware of the presence of Divine Love around me. I found I cared about those around me and enjoyed the vibrancy of their presence.

This is true, and it was just that simple. An old woman made a choice to send love, and changed me at depth. I became a presence of peace because I chose to accept the love she reminded me of. Love freed me from fear. It is simple. In our world where fear seems so strong, we can choose to love and become the presence of peace. The choice is ours.

I believe this is what our Center is about. At this time of tension and fear in our community, our nation and our world, where separation and mistrust is the norm, we are here to choose love, choice after choice, moment after moment. We know how to find the power of love that creates peace and our world hungers both for that knowledge and even more so for people who will live that choice.

~ Choosing love, creating peace, one heart at a time ~

—Reverend David McArthur