Love is a hot topic. It is a bit tricky to write about love, however, as there are so many different ways to understand or define it. In a simple internet search I found 1,920,000,000 entries. So I’ll narrow it a bit to this equation:
Love = God’s presence. I have been reading this wonderful little book called Lean Forward Into Your Life: Begin Each Day As If It Were On Purpose by Maryanne Radmacher.

It was in the chapter entitled “Risk Love” that I found this delightful paragraph: was it you who painted your favorite indigo blue across the sky? no-it was just the dusk greeting the night. at the end of this day i wondered… i
wouldn’t help but wonder if this is what you meant when you whispered to me that you would always protect
me, even when you couldn’t be seen… and that everywhere i looked and listened i would see & hear signs
of your love for me then… it was you… wasn’t it? (p.57)

I don’t really know if the author is referring to God here in this beautiful picture, but what it did for me was to initiate a process where I began looking and listening for where God was in the world, and therefore where Love might be found. The Christian tradition has the rich theology of God entering the world in the person of Jesus. The things we
sense: taste, touch, see, hear and experience –the emotional and relational connections we have with others –the pain of loss, brokenness and disappointment: all these are validated by God’s full participation in them in Jesus.

Therefore, when we look and listen for God we only have to go as far as our very earthy human experience. That is where the love of God becomes real and tangible. I’ll say it another way –God is not far off, God has come near, as near as our next breath, our next heartbeat. The good news is that God is accessible. Love is present in ways that
connect with our day to day human existence.

Where will you experience Love today?
Another day begins
How will I know you… today?
Will I feel you in the wind?
Will I see you in a smile, or in the color of the sky?
Will I touch you in an embrace,
Taste you in a meal?
Will I hear you in a song?
What if the melody is a cry or a moan?
Is it you I taste in my tears?
Are you in the press of dark and ache of loss?
In the void of hours
Will I see you in the cloud
And in the flame?
I will walk with you…
Through it all – and in all that is
Listening for your voice
Saying, “I love you.”