Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (love), I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity (love), I am nothing. – 1 Corinthians 13:1-2 (King James Version)

Being born in a family of psychics exposed me at an early age to the supernatural.  I never looked at psychic ability as something impossible to be obtained and so desirable as to be the ultimate goal in life.  I never associated fame with something so normal as being psychic.  Instead, I came into this world just wanting to be loved.

I looked at having love as being the ultimate goal to be obtained, because it seemed so elusive to me as a child.  I was sensitive early on and didn’t know it.  I would sense other people’s energy, and people were often cold and closed.  My uncle June was open and loving.  In his energy, I would feel at rest.  I didn’t realize until now that through this experience I was learning in the most basic way how to recognize love when I encountered it.  Uncle June embodied pure love, and I’m sure he felt as lonely and isolated as I sometimes do in a world that doesn’t value the art of love.  I knew he was pure love, because I came into this world with the ability to recognize it and the extreme desire to receive it.

As a child, I was confused by people’s coldness.  I wondered if they felt that to be sane, they had to hide their warm natures.  We are all born with a hunger to be nurtured and cared for, and a hunger to become one with another, our mate.  We thrive in loving and caring environments and wither when neglected and treated coldly.  We become fractured and twisted in environments that are filled with hate.  Why then don’t we understand that learning to treat each other with love is the ultimate lesson?  Love is the water and the sunshine for the tree.  No manner of magic, chanting, or jumping up and down will cause that tree to grow.  To give love is to provide what is basic and necessary for growth from a helpless infant to the wizened old man.  We all need it.  We all seek it and yearn for it, until and unless we give up.  What I’ve learned is that the ability to give love goes hand in hand with the ability to receive love, and both are enough for love to be allowed access in.

Erich Fromm wisely said in his book, The Art of Loving, “Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a “standing in,” not a “falling for.”  In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.”  We believe that giving means giving up something, and if we don’t receive in kind, then we are cheated.  We are under the false conception that when we give, something is being taken away from us.  Immersed in the modern media through television, radio, and the internet we develop the attitude, “What have you done for me lately?”  We hoard our goods and refuse to let go unless we can be guaranteed that we will not be left empty-handed.  What we don’t realize is that love is a never ending spring, eternally replenished as long as it is kept moving.  Keeping it moving requires us to keep on giving, for only then can we receive.

We’ve all heard the mantra “God is love.”  Don’t we understand that to experience oneness with God and the universe is to experience love?  In this new age, we new agers spend time in meditation, in chanting, in prayer, in yoga, and chi gong to find that oneness and to reach enlightenment.  Yet we miss the mark because we don’t realize that to love one another is the beginning of wisdom and awakening.  So life is suffering, requiring us to relinquish the goods we’ve so carefully hoarded, because only by experiencing loss will some of us finally go within to discover something greater and more enduring.  In that state we experience a presence, a sensation, and a feeling of something higher.  We start to realize that there are more than the goods we are so afraid of letting go.

We are all one, and our ultimate achievement is to love one another.  If we showed each other compassion and empathy, there would be very little suffering in the world.  We would see an end to war.  How could we shoot at others when we experience their pain as our own?  We would see an end to poverty.  How could we keep all the prosperity to ourselves when we feel the experiences of the homeless?  Love requires a lot of us, but its rewards are far greater than anything we would have to relinquish.

In the words of Erich Fromm, “Giving is the highest expression of potency.  In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power.  This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy.  I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence, as joyous.”

We experience ourselves and others when we give.  To love is to really begin to know ourselves.  The very thing we spend our lives searching for is wholly at our reach through the act of loving one another.  I’ve been concerned about how many of us feel that performing miracles and demonstrating our gifts of healing, of seeing, and of experiencing attunement is the evidence and proof that we are truly one with spirit.  If we have reached nirvana, we have obtained the ultimate prize.  We must see that those “gifts” are merely embellishments, moss growing on the north side of the tree, living off it but not profiting from it.  Love is the true gift and is more enduring, expressing itself as the flower and the fruit of the tree, revealing the power that lies within.

Love is longsuffering, and is kind.  Love does not envy. Love does not promote itself and is not proud.  Love never fails, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away. – (from) 1 Corinthians 13:8

Please allow yourself to be loving so that you can express that which you are, and you can begin to deliver that which will help return the world to a state of harmony.  We send out into the universe that which will elevate the state of others and so elevate us to a heightened awareness, simply by loving one another.