Love knocks

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to them and eat with them, and they with me. (Revelation 3:20)

The calendar says September, but my weather app reads 95 degrees Fahrenheit. A clutch of locust leaves arching over the balcony whispers the gilded glory to come, but not yet. Autumn still holds her gentle breath, waiting the time of sighs to release us once more.

That day will come. What we have is where we are now, today. Wherever that is and in whatever condition we find ourselves, the One who is Love comes to our door and knocks. We don’t need to wait, just look around.

Today, that knock is an out-of-the-blue email from someone I barely know, wondering if I knew her long-deceased missionary brother, the favorite of the family, killed in a horrible accident. I will write later, the mind says.  No, comes another voice. Do it now.

A quick note. Yes, I knew him long ago. Five minutes later comes her reply, laced with the joy of love remembered and living still, thankful for a few hastily written words from someone she barely knows.

So, it is: Love knocks, every day, in the movements of our minds and hearts, in intuitions and impulses, coaxing us to share or at least notice whatever good or beauty appears.

Love knocks hoping we might open the door and discover …

• that the fact of our existence is unfathomable, that we live wondrous lives in a universe more graced and connected than we can imagine,
•  that the joy of our beloved’s smile is more beautiful than anything on earth,
•   that this tiny blue and green dot of a planet, a pin prick of faintest light in the darkness, is the only island of life we know in the yawning immensity of the cosmos,
• ·         that everything and everyone we have ever known or loved is on that that pin prick and is willed, loved and cherished by the Unfathomable,
• ·         that just a few golden leaves insinuating the hope of autumn are sufficient to ignite an unbidden, visceral ‘yes’ exploding from your heart, ‘yes’ to the world, to your place within it and to all the pains and joys, missteps and unlikely events that somehow have conspired to make you … you … and to bring you to this place, this day, this moment.

Amid it all, the risen Christ speaks, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ Every day. Every moment bids us to surrender ourselves without delay to the undeniable intuitions and impulses of love, awe, wonder and beauty awakened within, sharing what we have been given to give, knowing the sweetness of his heart within our own.