Jun 15, 2025

Living in Unconditional Love (222)

 

“Love flows from God to humans without effort:

As a bird glides through the air without moving its wings-

Thus, they go wherever they wish united in body and soul,

Yet separate in form.”

–Mechtild of Magdeburg

 

My wife Eileen died from esophageal cancer in February 2020 one year after being diagnosed, 60 years after we met on Long Island. Then my brother Tom became ill (not COVID), and I spent a total of six weeks being with him in Ohio, but he died in October 2020. My sister-in-law Sue Mahoney died from Covid-19 in January 2021. On top of it all stood the pandemic, locking everyone down almost two years. Covid has proved to be a persistent problem, and many of the long-term effects are quite serious, and it has proven much more serious than flu.

06/15/2025                             Happy Father’s Day to all the dads who read this. I remember the awesome wonder and joy I experienced the first time I held each of my seven children; an unbelievable wonder in that I had a part in creating this image of God that I was holding.

This week has been good, but I had a tooth extracted on Thursday. Let us just say that the dentist (and extractions are his specialty) had to work for an hour, so I was not too comfortable for a while, and my face is still swollen as I write this (Saturday evening). It is getting better, but tender. Oh well, that is part of life, and it is feeling better.

The world is filled with conflict and people injured and dying. It is sad that despite most people wishing for peace, many harbor anger and hatred for people they do not know. T inflicts pain and causes much conflict. He said he would remove gang members but instead dishwashers and home cleaners and children appear to be his primary targets. It is his methodology that has roused the anger; using masked men dressed in black (reminds me of the “brown shirts” of Germany) to grab people and they just vanish, much as Ann Frank talked about and was common among the Nazis against the Jews.

The weather has been decent for a change, but today has been cloudy and quite cool. It is hard to believe that almost half of the year is gone, and the longest day will be here in a week. I saw one report that said it has either rained or snowed every weekend since November. Indeed, the seven-day week coincides with the weather patterns. I have seen this before, so I am not overly surprised. We happen to be unlucky in that the poorer weather occurs on the weekends. It is showing rain for most of next week – hopefully not on Friday when the bonsai group has our annual picnic at my place. But the group is small, and I have a large house.

The garden looks good and is flourishing with all the rain. The daylilies are starting to bloom as are the peonies and iris. The peonies are showing many-blooms-to-be and it will be quite the show, probably this coming week. The newer peony plants look larger this year and should put on a decent bloom, but it will be several years before they show their best.

Meditation

 

Gentle One, our poor world sighs in the pain we inflict on one another, and how much we ignore Your Love that is the reason for everything. I ask Your patience as we always see others suffer and die and somehow believe we will never die, even as we watched our loved ones die. Soon, and so matter what your age is it will be soon, it will be “my turn” to die – it is part of the cycle of life. I ask what I can do to spread Your Love to help those in need.