Revelation and Relationship

I see life these days through the eyes of a parent. It is the lens through which I interpret nearly everything. I think that it's a good thing, as it causes me to always add others into the interpretation, and not see life just in terms of my self.

As my kids grow (and I think I've mentioned this before), I find myself all too aware of the difference between actions based on rules and actions based on relationship. There is such a huge difference when the kids share toys because they have to, and the sharing that comes when they are enjoying each other and playing together.

A friend of mine had a vision. In it, she was touched by God, and on his fingers was written in wet ink the word 'worth'. She noticed that the word was transferred to her own hand, and she realized that she would give value to whomever she touched. She said it changed her... that she was more affectionate toward others, filled with the desire that they would know their worth.

How beautiful! When I read that, the thought ran through my mind, 'I need to be more affectionate.' Then I realized that unless my actions weren't based out of a change of my own heart, then I would have turned her revelation into a rule. And most can see that actions out of obligation are empty of love.

Isn't that really the greatest motivator and changer, love? I keep thinking about how empty life is without real relationship: relationship in which there is honesty and depth, the kind of relationship in which you feel truly known, the kind in which one is willing to cause some pain in order to bring to a greater healing.

It leaves me with a greater desire for revelation. It leaves me with a desire for deeper relationship with the Source, so that the place in me from which flows love can hold more...

I have long had this poem by Rilke on the wall above my desk:

I believe in all that has never been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing You as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.