Choosing Love

I read this excerpt from Lawrence Edwards the other day:

If you take what the Buddha and Christ said,
and all the great yogis, saints, sages,
mystics, and lovers of God,
it can be reduced to two words:
Choose Love.
There is nothing higher than Love,
nothing purer,
nothing more selfless,
nothing more powerful,
and it is present in every moment.
Choose Love.
In all times, in all places -
Choose Love,
for Love has already chosen you.

I believe that Love is the engine of the Universe, and that it's sole function is to produce more Love.  I also believe that "surrendering into Love" a choice... up to a point.  And yet, sometimes I think I resist really yielding (see blog post about Movement Theory) fully into Love in so many different situations because I'm afraid of what that experience of love will do to me.  I wonder if this might be true for most of us.  If so, maybe that's because we know that real love always requires personal transformation.  The timid, lazy parts of me then resist this surrender - in either big or small ways - precisely because I know that personal transformation comes at a price.

The people listed above in Edwards' example of those who "chose Love" lived radical lives.  Many of them gave up a comfortable, easy lifestyle because continuing to choose Love meant that they must. Love requires Love in exchange for Itself, and I suppose that none of us really know what our own Love for the world might look like for us personally if we were to fully choose It.  Choosing Love may actually be down-right world-destroying.... or, "the world as we know it"-destroying for each of us. Because Love begs this question of us:  What is your full potential?!  And if we're honest with ourselves, I think we'd all agree that that's a somewhat terrifying concept.  We risk becoming like seeds - each one of us having to allow our safe little shells to crack and tear themselves wide open so that the fertile of ground of Love might receive us, and change us into the fullest expression of our being.

The Buddha abandoned both extraordinary privilege and his own young family, Jesus knew he was going to die an excruciating and humiliating death, Mother Teresa gave up luxury for poverty, and others have sold Fortune-500 companies to sweep the floors of an Ashram.  Yet these same people have done remarkable things for humanity, and all of them have reported experiences of sublime ecstasy, unity, and peace.

I suppose there's only one thing we can expect:  To choose Love is both to risk and to gain everything.

I'm often reminded of something C.S. Lewis said about his character Aslan (the symbol of Divine Love in his fictional world of Narnia):  "Safe?  Who said anything about safe?  'Course he isn't safe. But he's good.  He's the King, I tell you".  I'd say the same is true of choosing Love.  It's GOOD. Just not safe.  And maybe I'm scared of that.