Love Is All You Need
by: Carol Jacobs
I have pondered why I have felt compelled to write from this phrase – the title of a Beatles’ song. Once this phrase/title entered my awareness it felt like an invitational or gravitational pull from my psyche. I no longer felt free to choose any other topic for this sharing. It finally came to me that “Love is All You Need” is somehow a compensation and reminder for the grief that has often been resting below the surface of my consciousness.
There is the grief that is connected to the COVID tragedy – 2,500,000 lives lost worldwide and 500,000 in our country – a devastating and breathtaking loss in our world. And…. There is the deep grief of sitting with the chaos and discord and destruction that holds our country in deeply divisive struggles.
The Beatles’ song was recorded in 1967, several years into the Vietnam War. Many voices then were protesting and questioning the moral and ethical implications of our country’s soul. (The song has the word LOVE repeated 71 times – an effort to get that message embedded in bodies and souls?). So, I’m thinking that we now need that word embedded in our own bodies and souls to remind us of our humanity – who we are meant to be.
John Lewis, our past congressman and civil rights activist and leader had this to say:
“You can say that in the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the divine. So you don’t have a right as a human to abuse that spark of the divine in your fellow human beings.”
We hear over and over again that our country is divided. We are divided politically, racially, and socio-economically. We are living in an energy space where there is a pull between power and love, both being visible as we tend to the news that informs us. John Lewis tells us to tend to our humanity.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said this:
“Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose….one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as polar opposites – so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love ….What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
And…… now the question: How do we live from a place of love? Perhaps we can start by remembering:
Love is the thread that gives life meaning.
We are all interconnected.
Each of us has value and therefore our own unique gifts to offer to the universe.
From this remembering we can ask the question again – “How do we live from a place of love?” The answer I have for myself is – “Pay Attention”. This means paying attention to my heart. It means holding the intention of being loving while realizing that there will be times of forgetting. It means being open to discernment, which requires deep listening to hear my soul’s message for how I am to be in the world. Paying attention means allowing for permeability – openness not only to myself but to others – listening deeply. It means having the courage to explore and acknowledge my “shadow” parts, those hidden parts that are challenging to accept. Paying attention also means to live from a compassion for ourselves and others – our human reality.
And now a closing with this lovely poem by Anne Hillman
“We are all on a journey together…
To the center of the universe…
Look deep
Into yourself, into another.
It is to a center which is everywhere
That is the holy journey…
First you need only look:
Notice the radiance of
everything about you…
Play in this universe. Tend
All these shining things around you:
The smallest plant, the creatures and
objects in your care.
Be gentle and nurture. Listen…
As we experience and accept
All that we really are…
We grow in care.
We begin to embrace others
As ourselves, and learn to live
As on among many…