Love is of God

Friday, June 12, 2026

Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

 Love is of God

A poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes brings love and healing to my mind.

You don’t have the powers of those who wound the realm,

nor those who seem able to save.

But, friend, the One who brought you into life

wove themselves deep into your being

with powers that you from behind your eyes may never see.

Simply in your way of being, if you so choose,

there flows a grace that heals.

It is not yours, but the power of the Beloved.

 

The forgiveness you have been granted

mends beyond you.

The gentleness with which you are held

spreads like the scent of a flowering lilac.

The grace you are given courage to trust

and to bear casts out demons of fear.

 

Imagine the mystery that there thrives in your heart

forgiveness that cleanses,

beauty that cures,

love that raises dead.

 

Don’t long for some great magical powers.

Let the heart of your Lover beat in you.

The blessing whose spring is within you

flows out to the ends of the world.

 In our family life at Waynesville Christian Church, and in our home just a block or two down the street, we sang verses with tunes put together by the Navigators, and one verse, 1 John 4:10, seems immortal to me. I can’t sing it for you, you’ll have to sing it for yourself …

This is love, not we love God

BUT that he loves us and sent his son,

As an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:10 … this is love!

So … the melody in my mind is different from the melody you created yourself, but even if our notes don’t harmonize, our minds do. And THIS also is love. God’s love with skin on.

Since April 27, when Dr. Grimm burst into our world and described his plan to use parts of my circulation system to create a new grid into and through my heart, I’ve been on top of the world. The colors are brighter and everyone has become a friend. I say hello to everyone, and there are smiles everywhere.

Beloved, let us love one another,

because love is of God;

everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

In 1968, riding with my friend Larry through the National Guarded streets of Mayor Daley’s Chicago during the Democratic Convention, WLS played a song over and over … “All the world over, people gotta be free.” I guess Larry Lujack wanted to encourage all us motley crew of demonstrators. I know I’ll never forget the goosebumps whenever we heard the song. I felt invited out of my individual life into a community. And “freedom” for everyone, something everyone could at least imagine, seemed possible.

Now in my pre-surgery waiting days, 46 and counting, that community seems possible again. Our church thrives on generosity of spirit, what’s called “becoming like Christ in all of life.” The dangers inherent in words like that becoming slogan-before-the-fact rather than descriptions of the work that’s been done are always there, of course. But what I’m experiencing every Sunday and the six other days as well is more real than a few however well-chosen words.

God, with, skin, on.

Here’s a link to last week’s time together.

The blessing whose spring is within you

flows out to the ends of the world.

(Deuteronomy 7, Psalm 103, 1 John 4)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

#