8.

Resolve to Live a Life of Great Love

We must learn to be able to think and behave like Jesus, who is the archetypal human. This becomes the journey of great love and great suffering. This journey leads us to a universal love where we just don't love those who love us. We must learn to participate in a larger love—divine love.

If we remain autonomous, independent, self-sufficient, we cannot know God nor can we love God. St. John of the Cross says: "God refuses to be known; God can only be loved."

Any journey of great love or great suffering make us go deeper into our faith and eventually into what can only be called universal truth. Love and suffering are finally the same, because those who love deeply are committing themselves to eventual suffering. Those who suffer often become the greatest lovers.

Fr. Richard Rohr

I hope you aren't too put off by the religious words in this quote, because there's so much to think about in it. The main point, as Rohr says in his title for this meditation, is to "Resolve to Live a Life of Great Love." That resonated with me because it's what I've tried to do for a long time, without having heard it put quite this way: to love more and more deeply -- and more and more selflessly -- all other beings, the earth, the beauty of own creations, and whatever we call the force that connects us: that force Paul Tillich called "the ground of all being." A life of great love means loving yourself, too. Giving your heart to loving greatly means taking a lot of risks, but I think the rewards are worth it.

(Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest and founding director of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He writes regularly for Sojourners, Tikkun, and the Huffington Post.)