I am the founding pastor of Imago Dei Metropolitan Community Church located in Delaware County, PA; and a resident of Wilmington, DE. As an avid writer seeking to share winsome reflections about the human condition, I hope to encourage individuals to tap into their passion and purpose (re-)discovery and resurrecting their hopes and dreams. I grew up in Gettysburg, PA in a home where three of the adults struggled with drug and alcohol addictions; and learned at an early age the importance of self-love as essential to experience wholeness in mind, body, and spirit. As a new member to the Board of Directors, my postings are intended to offer spiritual encouragement to the reader.
Soaring to Love
Have you ever seen a flock of black birds flying in unison?
There can be something majestic and beautiful in gazing upon black birds in flight. They swoop and loop and turn suddenly to the left and to the right as if each were linked together by a mental wire. This mental wire of interconnectivity sends a message in a split second before the turn so that these beautiful black birds to do not crash into each other.
It is almost like a ballet in the air that one can be drawn into watching the birds loop and swoop for hours on end. It is possible to be mesmerized by the unity and conformity of the flock of beautiful black birds.
Question, though…
What if you were the black bird? How would you feel being tied to the crowd having to go in whatever direction the crowd chose? What if you flew with a flock of black birds that decided to fly straight into the heart of a tornado?
The feathers would surely fly!!!
Mindful that our natural human condition longs for community and the heart’s desire for inter-connectedness, there may be times that individuals choose the wrong flock in which to fly.
Are you flying with the right flock?
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, writes:
“You are happy when you can relate to other people and other living beings. If not, you feel all alone, in your world, no one understands you and you understand no one. Love is critical to our happiness.” (The Art of Power, Harper One, 2007:14)
It is possible for a beautiful person to join with a group of people who choose to fly into a path of destruction simply because the beautiful person longs for love and to belong. In fact, each person in that group flying a path of potential destruction also longs to belong; and perhaps none have been taught how to get along in life in loving ways.
If we are unable to tap into the beauty within and unable to see that we are beautiful within then the path we will naturally choose to fly is one that may not be beautiful or loving at all.
The feathers fly.
Daily each person is faced with many choices to fly toward a rainbow in the sky or toward a storm brewing on the horizon. Each day each person makes choices with which group they will fly—the flock they choose will influence whether they seek the beauty or the beast inside.
In addition, how the person chooses to be, either influenced or an influencer, will determine whether they see beauty or beast. Will a person choose to seek love?
Bishop Carlton Pearson, an African-American Fundamentalist Preacher, writes:
“Everything you experience has love in it somewhere. Each encounter exposes part of the self you must really love, because each encounter reveals more of the essence of who you really are.” (The Gospel of Inclusion, Azusa Press, 2007:207)
Our inner-being longs for community; and sometimes we have to take what is given to us by way of community. We have to fly with who we are with in that moment in time. However, we don’t have to choose to take on the attitude of the flock. We can choose instead to seek the love inside and among those with whom we soar.
In fact, if we choose the path of claiming love among and amidst those beautiful folks who long to belong and love, but don’t know how to either belong or long to love in healthy ways, perhaps the universe is asking us to lead them in flight.
Just maybe the Universe is asking us to lead the beautiful toward soaring love.
There can be something majestic and beautiful in gazing upon black birds in flight. They swoop and loop and turn suddenly to the left and to the right as if each were linked together by a mental wire. This mental wire of interconnectivity sends a message in a split second before the turn so that these beautiful black birds to do not crash into each other.
It is almost like a ballet in the air that one can be drawn into watching the birds loop and swoop for hours on end. It is possible to be mesmerized by the unity and conformity of the flock of beautiful black birds.
Question, though…
What if you were the black bird? How would you feel being tied to the crowd having to go in whatever direction the crowd chose? What if you flew with a flock of black birds that decided to fly straight into the heart of a tornado?
The feathers would surely fly!!!
Mindful that our natural human condition longs for community and the heart’s desire for inter-connectedness, there may be times that individuals choose the wrong flock in which to fly.
Are you flying with the right flock?
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, writes:“You are happy when you can relate to other people and other living beings. If not, you feel all alone, in your world, no one understands you and you understand no one. Love is critical to our happiness.” (The Art of Power, Harper One, 2007:14)
It is possible for a beautiful person to join with a group of people who choose to fly into a path of destruction simply because the beautiful person longs for love and to belong. In fact, each person in that group flying a path of potential destruction also longs to belong; and perhaps none have been taught how to get along in life in loving ways.
If we are unable to tap into the beauty within and unable to see that we are beautiful within then the path we will naturally choose to fly is one that may not be beautiful or loving at all.
The feathers fly.
Daily each person is faced with many choices to fly toward a rainbow in the sky or toward a storm brewing on the horizon. Each day each person makes choices with which group they will fly—the flock they choose will influence whether they seek the beauty or the beast inside.
In addition, how the person chooses to be, either influenced or an influencer, will determine whether they see beauty or beast. Will a person choose to seek love?
Bishop Carlton Pearson, an African-American Fundamentalist Preacher, writes:“Everything you experience has love in it somewhere. Each encounter exposes part of the self you must really love, because each encounter reveals more of the essence of who you really are.” (The Gospel of Inclusion, Azusa Press, 2007:207)
Our inner-being longs for community; and sometimes we have to take what is given to us by way of community. We have to fly with who we are with in that moment in time. However, we don’t have to choose to take on the attitude of the flock. We can choose instead to seek the love inside and among those with whom we soar.
In fact, if we choose the path of claiming love among and amidst those beautiful folks who long to belong and love, but don’t know how to either belong or long to love in healthy ways, perhaps the universe is asking us to lead them in flight.
Just maybe the Universe is asking us to lead the beautiful toward soaring love.
1 comment:
Karla, welcome to our BCI community and thanks for sharing these insights with us!
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