*Monday Experiment: Values 1

After reading about the experiment in which female physics students improved their grades merely by writing about what they valued in life and why, I decided to do the same myself and see what would transpire. Litlove (whose blog about literature is thought provoking and preceptive) suggested that the exercise be posted and so I decided to do that every Monday until the end of the year.

Litlove's wonderful post about her own beliefs is here. I found it energizing and exciting to read–and it made me think that there might also be a positive contagion in blogging this way. It certainly pushed me to get right to my own post. My method is this: to hand write for 15 minutes on Saturday, type it up on Sunday, post it on Monday.

A bit of background first: a few years ago, I wrote a constitution for my life, which, periodically I review and update. It begins with four principles, so I began this exercise by taking the first principle and expanding on it. Here goes.

Since we are in this world as separate beings in order to experience love and diversity, I value love above all because to stand in love is to stand in light, which is our origin, our true being, and our purpose. This is the truth behind all the stand-ins that we seek as we negotiate the material world, accumulating status, possessions, or other simulacra for love.

I value creativity as a holy act. It is holy because it happens as we open to love and light and wonder and it opens us further. It brings us into closer knowledge of the material world, its properties and its possibilities and therefore its nature as an emanation of light. I know, too, the sadness of life, for all qualities exist as soon as there is division. If there were only light, if there were only oneness, there would be no world. Since there is a world of warm and cold, then there is health and sickness, kindness and cruelty, solid earth and quaking earth and everything in between.

It is only natural to be afraid. But one may always return to a place of love in which we can hold ourselves and others gently. There we remember who we really are and what really matters. There is love and there is wonder at the magnificent otherness of stars and atoms and all the flavours of ice cream.

I believe in love…., originally uploaded by Carl Loves Somerset.

Next week: solidarity.

Filed under: A Monday Moment, My Life, Spirituality Tagged: love