I have always thought of "energy” as
a very physical thing. You got it in large quantities when atoms
were split or the power of heat or water harnessed. On the personal
level, I would feel energetic if I were healthy, ate the right
food and took the right amount of sleep and rest and exercise.
At least that's how I viewed it until
last week. It was in Wellsprings, my favourite book of meditations
that I read the words: “I
am energised by love".
Energised by love! Straightaway I recognised
love as a far more effective source of personal energy than
heat or light, than
food or diet, than rest or sleep. Love powerfully releasing energy
as paralysing hurts are soothed by the understanding of a friend!
-as the crippling effects of self-rejection fade in the warmth
of acceptance from someone who loves me! - as guilts brought
on by wrongs I have inflicted on others are banished by their
gentle, generous forgiveness. Love, too, is responsible for the
uplift of spirit brought on by genuine affirmation – or
that surge of vitality occasioned by the simple positive presence
of someone I love. Divine or human? Does it matter which? Is
there a difference? ... "Oh, that towering feeling..."!
So, once again, spirit triumphs over matter. The energy I most
need in life is the fruit of love far more than of bodily condition.
So it's love, above all, that I need to cultivate. And isn't
that what Jesus tells me?!!
|