Kind promise: I will love without keeping score.
Last week, I went to my aunt’s funeral and saw love in action.
Her friends and extended family gathered. We don’t see each other often (some of us had never met), but we gathered to honor and celebrate this woman who spread love. She believed it came from God. To remind and encourage herself, she taped Bible verses written on 3 x 5 cards to walls and cupboards and mirrors around her apartment.
Entering the family gathering, there is a sense of relaxation. I trust that I will be received with smiles and hugs and good humor. I suspect that is not true of every tribe. I am blessed to come from a family that remembers love…
…more often than not.
There are those times when I remember when he did that to me and she said that about my mom and maybe I don’t feel so loving anymore. Rather than smiling, I’m sighing. I’m folding my coat instead of opening my arms.
It’s the second part of this promise that can rescue me. If I’m remembering injuries, I’m keeping score. You can bet, when I’m doing angry math, the answer is that they owe me and I feel like clamping down and withholding love – and anything else they might want.
Instead, I take a deep breath and remember “to forgive with wild abandon” and “to love without keeping score.” I use skills I’ve learned in meditation practice to take a fresh start and begin again.
How can I remember love more often?
Like my aunt, I can post reminders throughout my living space.
On my left hand, I wear a wedding ring, on my right, one of my mother’s rings. I have just taken a moment to say to them, “when I look at you, may I remember love.”
For the rest of this month, I will try to greet each person I see with the same (unspoken) intention: When I look at you, may I remember love.