The Chain of Life

Loving yourself allows you to love other people.

"This could be compared on Earth to the most creative jeweler designing the ultimate in beautiful chains. Life is the ultimate in a beautiful chain. Each link grows from the last beautiful link until you have an unbroken circle of beauty. Within that chain of family and friends who love you is the strength to break the fear of separation and enhance the beauty of creation." (Joy of Health, 221)

I’ve been thinking about this paragraph since I read it a few days ago. With our first Online Course using Kathy’s third book, Sharing: Self Discovery in Relationships, I’ve seen the beauty of “sharing” energy in new ways. The art of communication as creation happens, as we live the changes inherent in life’s (creation’s) design, is teaching me, again, to enjoy the absolute beauty of creating through the energy of love. As a friend said, You know, truth makes a mind do funny things – it compels you to act! One phrase that Kathy said stands out in my mind: It is very important that we not lose our own voice. The ethical patterns of us, and within me, emerge as I let them, as I honor them.

“Diplomacy, democracy, grace, civility” – are words that come up often, and as a collective body we are struggling to accept and live, to understand. I recognize the tiny little energy bursts I feel as these “grace notes” reveal themselves to me in my mind, and my emotions dance around. Talking with my Mother last night fed that light of love within me in a way only a mother-love can. She had told me earlier that two of her new friends, staff at the Rehab Center where she stayed for a few months, called yesterday to say hello, see how she is. She laughed gently when she told me that upon hanging up the phone with one of them, she said, I love you. A minute or so later the woman called back and said, I love you, too, Mrs. Martin. Mom was amused at the fact that she had called back so quickly to say so. This brought tears to my eyes, because such a simple story reveals the way love heals, how change happens, how love expands as we communicate, simply. I felt “enlightened” because she shared her story. For that instant, in my own time and space, I felt the joy of that love shared. What a gift. I'm holding it within me, along with the infinite other moments of joy that have impressed themselves into my stream of conscious life.

Loving ourselves allows us to love others. Energy is real. Allowing the Spirit the freedom to be is the mind’s ultimate gift to itself. Acknowledging the love of spirit, of infinite energy, is appreciating the jeweler within each of us, and all of the “energy sharing” creation uses to fulfill its intention of beauty, freedom, love, and the truth of life as we live it.

Here’s another great reminder from Joy of Health, which brings me full circle:
“Good relationships contribute to good health and joy. They should be cherished and nourished, just as you would cherish any material possession in your world. Indeed, a good relationship is far more valuable to the world of man than any material possession could ever be. … A soul does not grow without the contact of other souls. The drama of life would not be much of a drama without the interactions that relationships provide.” (JOH, 254)