On the morning of the happy couple’s wedding, I’m standing out in the middle of the river, barefoot with pants rolled up to me knees, bucket in hand, trying not to slip on the river rocks and crack open the old noggin.
“It’s always the practice of perspective —- that makes the heart receptive to Love.
Because when the foraged flowers — the goldenrod and picked daisies and blue iris, there in the old tin buckets at the ceremony site — which is this cathedral of towering trees in the woods at the back of our river farm — need to be filled up with water because there’s this slow leak in the bottom of one bucket?
There’s not much else to do but hike through the trees, slide down the river embankment, and wade out to where the water’s deep enough to fill a 5 gallon pain, because the closest faucet’s more than 2 whole farms away, and a river of promise runs through it all right here and now.
It’s less than 3 hours to the wedding ceremony.
Less than 3 hours till the grinning bride and groom stand under the old spruce trees, look into each other’s eyes, and pledge their “I do.”
It’s less than a month since we returned from serving in Romania, and that national radio interview when I was asked to offer, in just one sentence, what was maybe be the very most important thing for people to know — and I had surpised myself with the answer:
“This is the practice of a lifetime: The Practice of being Receptive to Love. You will persevere in life as well as you practice being receptive to Love. “
“At the heart of the universe, is the face of God smiling love over you.”
Which means: Every part of you that you’ve labelled unlovable is exactly where Jesus writes: unconditionally loved.
Which means: God’s so unconditionally loves you as you are, that He won’t leave you as you are, but keeps growing you into all you are meant to be, because life without growth is stagnant and dying — and change and growth is always needed to be flourishing and thriving.
And ultimately: You will persevere in life as well as you practice being receptive to Love.
This is the practice of a lifetime: The Practice of being Receptive to Love.
Here we are on a Saturday in June putting into practice all the plans for a wedding and that’s what all of life really is:
“It’s this practice of being receptive to love that makes you attentive to God. “
Life is commitment to practice. Throw back the worn quilt every morning, put barefeet to the floor and begin to practice: The practice of presence, the practice of non-anxiousness, the practice of patience, the practice of forgiveness, the practice of gentleness, the practice of the fruits of the Spirit, the practice of community, the practice of keeping company with Christ, the practice of being love.
The practice of being receptive to love, and of being love, is messy, gritty, honest work.
There’s simply a willing laughing community of friends and family who are moving the wooden tables that my Dad handmade, Jason and Aaron setting up the curved back chairs that were handmade from trees in our woods, Mariella and Judith slipping foraged flowers into found and thrifted bottles-made-vases all down the center of the tables, Anwen and Josh readying the heaping bowls of food for 100 guests, all made the day before by the smiling mother of the bride, Caleb and Aaron warming all the sweet and tangy flavors of pulled pork homegrown here on our farm, and then all the setting out the handwritten name cards with blue forget-me-nots flowers hand-pressed by Magali — all these humble, hard-working people practicing being a community, committed to the practice of being love and being receptive to love.
There’s no event organizer neatly ticking off a list anywhere here with only few hours left to vows.
This is what carries us all. I’m smiling in the middle of a river.
“Whatever we practice looking on — is what we are actually practicing becoming.
The practices makes a person. “
A handmade wedding that’s a labor of love — can deliver into a wholehearted joy that’s a work of God.
A community making a wedding together actually makes a community bonding closer together.
Who knew that so much of the smiling joyfulness of the wedding is rooted in the serving givenness of the wedding preparations? Simply: The more we serve together, the more we get to smile together.
When you get to live given, you get a life of joy!
It’s the practice of living given that gives us practically the greatest joy.
It’s the practice of being receptive to love — being receptive to the look in someone’s eyes, the offer of someone’s hand, the gift of someone’s time, the light that’s always present in any given moment —- it’s this practice of being receptive to love that makes you attentive to God.
I am see it too, paying attention to it too:
Life is ultimately the practice of focusing the eyes. When eyes are focused on Love Himself — the soul is formed like Love Himself.
You practice your faith as well as you practice being receptive to Love. Because Jesus is the very person of Love Himself — if you don’t practice receiving Love, are you really practicing receiving Christ Himself?
Whatever we practice looking on — is what we are actually practicing becoming.
The practices makes a person.
It’s always the practice of perspective —- that makes the heart receptive to Love.
If I’m struggling to be receptive to love —- how can I change the perspective of my heart?
The water in the river is warm for early June. It’s flowing steady, eddying only a bit as it slides around a flattened stone protruding like an island of granite. One more bucket of water for the big tin bucket of flowers up at the wedding altar in the woods. I can hear one of my lambs up in the fold on the far side of the river bleating for the comfort of her mama.
And this is what is steadying me, anchoring and comforting me, as I keep trying to live it:
You practice your faith as well as you practice being receptive to Love.
The reality of that still seems strange and paradoxical to me. But because Jesus is the very person of Love Himself — if you don’t practice receiving Love, are you really practicing receiving Christ Himself?
Yet what exactly is love, and how to know what to actually practice being receptive to, how to know what to receive? The farmland under my feet opens wide to receive what the river gives and just before a wedding covenant of love, my heart opens wides to it too, what is most important to know and embrace:
Love Himself can only give love.
And: Everything that touches a life must come through the door of the sheepfold.
Love Himself is the Shepherd who lays down to make Himself into the door of the fold. Love Himself only lets into the fold what He can unfold into good, unfold into grace, unfold into love.
“Love Himself is the Shepherd who lays down to make Himself into the door of the fold. Love Himself only lets into the fold what He can unfold into good, unfold into grace, unfold into love.“
I lean down over the river running through our land, bucket in hand, to water flowers for a covenant ceremony, and I can feel heart binding to God:
At the heart of the universe, is the face of God smiling over you — and everything that enters your life comes through the door of Love — and He is Love and He is the door.
As river water fills the pail buckets of picked wedding flowers, it strikes me —
Whatever we understand about God pulling on skin and visiting this planet, whatever supernatural revolution happened in the universe when God nailed down His love for humanity with wide open arms at the Cross, whatever we understand about real good news in a really bruised and broken world, I am standing out in the middle of a river just before vows of forever love and I’m undone by the cosmic reality of it:
Once you fall into Christ’s river of Life, and the current of His love — there is no way out.
Wherever you feel like there’s no way, the reality is: There is no way out of His love!
Once you’re in Christ — you’re carried by a river of grace and there’s no way out of the current of His love.
There is no overwhelm in the world that can pull you out of the stronger undertow of His loving arms underneath you.“
The current of water fills my pail, and my soul fills with the joy of a covenant of Love with God, and somewhere in the woods, the tap, tap, tap of a woodpecker punctuates the point.
The current of His love is always stronger than whatever’s happening currently.
And when we commit to the practice of being receptive to love — in all the ways it comes — the heart expands to hold all kinds of joy.
After their covenant vows of love on a late afternoon in June, there will be a homemade meal under the apple trees down on the riverflats.
Once you fall into Christ’s river of Life, and the current of His love — there is never any way out.
There will be square dancing under a canopy of stars, under lights strung from trees, there will be fireworks exploding over our grinnings faces, over the river singing on. And there will be sparklers waving the happy couple off through a tunnel of promise as they ride out on a motorcycle across the fields, bride’s dress waving joy.
And one community will be changed by the practice of love, changed by a covenant of love.
Once you fall into Christ’s river of Life and the current of His love — there is never any way out.
And a river of love runs through everything, it’s current stronger than whatever’s currently happening- and the practice of being receptive to love is as possible as seeing that you’re already standing in a current of love with a bucket.
Wed yourself to the practice of not resisting but receiving.
Related: Part 1 of this Series on Love: What is the Most Important Thing For Anyone to Know
How do you live loved?
How do actually practically find way to to live that is receptive to the love of God — so that you can actually persevere?
What does it personally look like to form your mind, your days, your life, into the deeply meaningful, cruciform love of Jesus and let God love you in the ways He deems good and best?
What does it powerfully look like to have a new way of life, a new way of being that rests fully in the hesed loving kind ways of God?
