Friends,
Love is a powerful thing. As stated in Corinthians 13:13, “Three things will last forever — Faith, Hope and Love — and the greatest of these is love.”
Love can take many forms. Agape (Koine Greek) Love is a love beyond, a spiritual love. Mudita (Pali) Love is sympathetic joyous love, a love for others and a higher level of empathy. We call into action The Spirit of Expectancy.
In a deep way, we love when we expect the world to get better. We expect love to triumph. That we can help individuals experiencing poverty, that we can build bridges between those who are excluded by means of White Supremacy and Racism and those benefiting from it. This Spirit is the hope that we ignite by doing the uncomfortable things by looking both inward at ourselves and our psyches, and looking outward at the stumbling blocks in front of our siblings.
We love when we listen to one another. There are so many ways to do this. We expect love to triumph politically, by helping one another vote: helping our neighbors register, offering rides to the polls, volunteering at polling stations, etc. We manifest the spirit of expectancy socially, when we are there for one another, listening to hear, imbuing empathy and chipping in to help.
The Spirit of Expectancy manifests when I don’t have to explain what “Love is Love” means. The Spirit of Expectancy is invoking and evoking the Beloved Community… not just checking privilege, but wielding it, within the intersectionality to speak and to hear the pain and joy happening, to tell the stories of hope and love.
Paul Massari said, “Love means that we are called to nurture health in one another…to nurture community with one another, to nurture the wholeness and vitality of every person, and to lift one another up. It can’t be reconciled with putting children in cages, with erasing transgender people, with racism, or with poverty. It means we are connected with one another. In this way, God is a powerful form of love.”
Let us work together to democratize our community as an embodiment of Love.
May it be so and Amen.
— Rev. Will