I surrender.
I open and let the love in.
I open myself to the light.
It pours in this open mind and heart
and quickly hits the walls of protection
and cupboards filled with concepts
that I have used to protect this space.
Like a piece of art that is hung on the same wall
in the same spot for years,
those walls and cupboards have become invisible,
just part of the room.
Initially they made that space cozy and safe.
And now, because the warmth and brilliance have poured in,
they are demanding my attention.
Notice the delicate brush strokes on that painting,
the colors red and orange calling to you.
Did you forget about that special drawer in that cupboard
filled with your dreams and hurts and desires?
Let the light and love in.
And then let it out.

Those words are born out of the image in my mind of water filling a space. Did you ever watch how it starts permeating, and when there’s enough, it’s all wet?

That water is like the light and love that wants to enter all the places in us. Perhaps we don’t let that happen very often. Sometimes, I have this little container into which I welcome the warm waters of love, but my hands and my feet are freezing. Parts of my heart and my soul have not seen the light of day for ages. And I think that letting it into the small space in which I have been living is oh-so-great. I know love is me, love is all, we are one…except for you and you and you, because you annoy me.

I’m serious about the fact that we say spiritual clichés as though we have now let love in. Love is grand, love is light—but what about the cupboard? What about that place where the pain is in that little drawer? What about the place where your dreams have been locked up for fear of having another broken heart? What about the wall that you have up, protecting half your life from the possibility of it being useful in your creative field? What about the genius that you once showed and someone mocked? What about the openhearted way in which you loved when someone walked away? What about that? The highest love is saying, We will heal this and you can love like that again, because you are designed to do that. It is you. You did that because it was you.

There are so many ways that we are certain, when we are in pain, that love, our spirit, and life itself abandons us. There is no answer, we think. I will seclude myself. I will keep my circle of friends to the ones that are easy.

My neighbor says he only allows himself three friends because it gets too hard. And I said, “Well, what if you meet a new person?” He said, “I’ve got to kick one out.” Part of him is kidding, part of him is not. He does not want the responsibility of communion with the people in his world and the fact that things change when we have friends. There will be intimacy that will be difficult and that will bring things up that he might have to talk about. He might have to say, You are really important to me, but I don’t know what to do with this situation, and I don’t want to lose you.

This idea of opening to the higher love is not some imaginary, woo-woo, swish-swish experience for me. It is work. It is also total freedom, total ecstasy and joy, to know that every part of me is already filled with that love, and I have just been denying it. I have been walking around as a spiritual paraplegic in some ways, handicapped by the limitations I have put on myself and I have put on you, thinking you don’t know how to let love in either—that you don’t know how to be available to the higher love and be in communion at that level. As if you do not know that there are things in the human experience—right in front of us—that don’t make sense and carry some sludge with them. And what will change that? Putting it in a cupboard?

I have many pieces of beautiful art in my house. If I don’t move them around from one wall to another, I forget that they are there. To have value to us, art has to be observed, pondered, perhaps even touched. It has to be appreciated. And I am not saying that we need to go into our subconscious or into our pain centers and stir things up. But I am saying that when a painting or a cupboard calls for your attention, it is because there is something wanting to happen. And a painting may need to be moved so you can see it for what it really is.

Honor what the higher love is saying. Let all the spaces in you be transformed. Let yourself bring the focus of spirit that is yours to bring. Activate your unique genius. Let yourself be vulnerable because it is your nature, not because you are weak. Vulnerability requires strength and courage.

Are there parts of you where love has not visited for a while? Do you have places that have been nobody’s business and that have eventually become not even your business? Are there places where you are a quart low in your willingness to pour out a blessing? Do you have blessings to deliver that people are hungry for? But you are still waiting to deliver it to them because you are not letting the warmth of the sun there?

Do you have power that you are afraid to bring? I am not talking about imposing on people. I am talking about the power of your love and the power of your ability to see others truly. That is a powerful gift, to look at somebody and see them for the vibrant Being they are, seeing past the outer appearance to witness the highest love within them.

As we open and let light and love pour in, let’s see what grows. Let’s be careful and cautious, not because we are afraid of what love will create but only because we care about what we are giving our loving attention to. Let the highest love have its way.