Have you ever been in love? When you fall in love, your lover is the total objective of your living. Every moment that you’re awake you think about him/her. Every breath you take, you take in his/her memory. You eat and drink dreaming of being with your lover. More than anything else, you desire to be in your lover’s presence even if he/she doesn’t utter a word. There’s nothing you will not do to be with him/her.
Can you feel your nostrils tingling and your mouth salivating? Are you licking your lips wondering what kind of amazing dance Fesenjoon might do on your taste buds? Why are you wondering about that? Everything you need to know about Koresh-e-Fesenjoon is in writing in front of you. You know its ingredients, you know how to make it, you know how to serve it, and you even have a photo of it.
The thing that struck me the most is how this time and space is opened. It is established as a time for us to open our minds to God by listening. We didn’t sing songs, we didn’t recite any prayers, we as a group came together to be quiet. Shah read a few paragraphs in one of the books of the Bible, and we sat in silence quieting our minds (which is no easy task) and listened.
When you’re in love, your whole perspective on life changes. You see things through a different lens. You’re capable of amazing self-sacrifice and self-giving. What’s so incredible is that you don’t even think of what you do as something costly. Giving sacrificially becomes a natural part of your life because love shifts your center. The object of your love, your beloved, becomes the center of your life. Can we love God like that? Yes…
It was in late 1998 in my Early Church History class, when I heard my professor, Mel Robeck, in passing say, “And then there were the Desert Fathers and Mothers who went to the desert to do spiritual warfare, but NOT the way we do it today.” For various reasons, that one sentence started my journey into what’s known as...
The Christian meditation is NOT for self-improvement—although that could very well be a part of it—but for drawing closer to the Divine. We do not empty ourselves of mental chatter to be filled with the universe, but we fit “every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by the ‘Creator’.” — 2 Cor. 10:5
