Reflection
To live God’s Universe Story is to participate in a large love. We need to be mystics, not moralists. We cannot wait for things to be perfect (friends, country, church, marriage) to fall in love with them, or we will never love anything. Once we accept that we are part of creation evolving, that we are evolving personally, then we are free to love the imperfect. We can love everyone and everything.
Richard Rohr
Prayer
Love one another as I have loved you.
John 13:34
Action
How realistic are your expectations? How willing are you to accept those you love with their imperfections? Where are your areas of intolerance? How can you change?
Suggested Reading
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:12-14
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3-4
We are all children of one heavenly father. We belong to the same human family and we share a common destiny. This brings a responsibility for each to work so that the world becomes a community of brothers who respect each other, accept each other in one’s diversity, and take care of one another.
Pope Francis
At the deepest level of consciousness divisions disappear. … Our inner depths are as wide as the love we allow to flow through us.
Barbara Fiand
When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.”
Dalai Lama
Relationships are based on four principles: respect, understanding, acceptance and appreciation.
Mahatma Gandhi
Love doesn’t mean a state of perfect caring. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now—and to go on caring through joyful times and through times that may bring us pain.
Fred Rogers
Acceptance is simply love in practice. When you love, you accept, when you lack love, you judge.
Abhijit Naskar
Acceptance is a whole different kind of maturity. It is a gift of freedom to self more than to others.
Chinonye J. Chidolue
Love is not always fireworks and magic. Often we’ll experience it in the form of patience, acceptance, loyalty, and mutual respect.
Charles F. Glassman