Uniting with the Force of Love

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi

The recent convergence of Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday puzzled a lot of people. How strange and ironic for these two very different holidays to fall on the same day, right? (FYI, the last time it happened was in 2018 and the next time it will happen again is 2029)

But it made sense to me, in the way that juxtaposition and contrast is often the best and most direct way to generate understanding. It’s not random or by mistake - it’s for a purpose. And my mind went right to my favorite Rumi quote above, and it clicked.  That Ash Wednesday, as the portal to the Lenten journey towards the ultimate sacrifice, could be an opportunity to bring awareness to how we, individually and collectively, have learned to separate ourselves from love. 

And it invited me into a deeper questioning of what Rumi may have been expressing through his words.

What kind of love have I built walls and barriers against in my life? 

Is it just romantic love?  Or is it also love of self? 

Love of others?  Love of God, Nature and the Universe?

Because if I treat love not merely as a human emotion confined to just a few select relationships, but as a uniting, limitless, sacred force that brings me into deeper communion with myself, with others, with the Earth and Sky, with all living things, with the Cosmos...with Christ Consciousness...what if I had no barriers to that Love?

I invite you to consider that with me.

How would life be different if you opened yourself to the Force of Love and allowed it to permeate all parts of your world? 

If you began removing the conditions and barriers to Love so it could become as constant as the air you breathe and the gravity that holds your feet to the ground? 

Not just being loving with the people who are easy to love, but loving with those who are really hard to love?

What if instead of feeling love as something outside of you, you could give yourself permission to not be separate, but to BE an embodiment and representative of Love, through and through?

So why did Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, happen on the same day? I believe it’s to grant us the opportunity to see how they actually complement and synergize one another, lifting both up to higher versions of what they can be. Ascending Valentine’s Day to much more than just a Hallmark Holiday focused purely on the limits of romantic love and physical materialism. Zooming out on the 40 days of Lent to be less about taking something away to affirm our inherent unworthiness of God’s Love and Jesus’ sacrifice, but rather to shed the burden of the illusions and beliefs that have clouded our vision, thereby preparing ourselves to embrace our inherent worthiness of God’s Love and being a part of this bigger picture of LIFE here on Earth.

From my perspective, they coincided with intent and purpose to help lift all of us up to a higher understanding and consciousness of Love as a Force. A force that transcends death and the physical journey of life. A force that reminds us who we actually are.

So think about that. Think about Love as a Force and how you can unite with it. And in simply considering what it could mean to BE the Love, your life will begin to shift, like a withered plant receiving the water it's been craving.  Because Love is who we are.  It is the very essence of what we are and why we are here now. We've simply forgotten. 

And a BIG part of the meaning of life is in remembering it.   Remembering it every day, not just on Valentine’s Day. Remembering that you are one with LOVE. And in doing so, unlocking the key to life everlasting.