Three Words for your belief...and a loving smile to accompany.

A'rabbit trail' of thought, that may build some support or context for my attempts to explore Richard Rohr's discussion of dual vs non-dual views, and hopefully, other areas suitable for discussion of the dual versus non-dualistic concept. 

When you see a sunrise, or a beautiful moon, do you pause, in awe? Do you think of God? Do you feel creation? Yet God, in all his omnipotence, does not label the sunrise as 'Christian', does not slap you in the mine & heart with a prideful master-to-servant insistence so that you know this is God, not even an overt 'I Am'. So we, as 'suns' of God, don't need to yell "I'm a Christian...Jew...Muslim...", I only need to shine as the sun, the moon.

Sounds simple. Yet, now that I've settled on this simple view, how do I go about shining? Love God, and love your neighbor. Oh yeah, cool, another 'easy' belief, or 'greatest commandment', if you prefer. And, how do I love God? Ahhh, apparently if I love my neighbor, I AM loving God. Nawww! Too simple. 

Okaaaay, so just how simple is it to love my neighbor? Especially if the world is my neighbor. Where does my neighbor-hood start, and where does it stop? For decades I've heard the expression 'what a small world it is'.  As we now discover that travel to formerly exotic, distant, difficult to reach lands is so easy, and oh so quick. That is my neighborhood? All the world? Or when we are walking through a far off city, and stumble across another traveler – from our hometown! 'What a small world we live in', and 'it's getting smaller every day'. Does a 'small world' make for a huge neighborhood? Is a huge neighborhood made up of many, many neighbors? All the world's souls?  

Ok, I don't want to overwhelm myself. And piling on of the notion that my neighborhood is the whole world can feel overwhelming, just too much to love. Yet, (and allow me to play with words here for a minute), how much is God? Is God too much to love? I hope not. I believe not. I have faith that God has made man to love God – creator creates creature with capacity to love creator – creator is love – creator creates with & in & through love - love creates love. God is love. Creature created in the image of creator. How far from love can the created be? Is love not part of the created's genetic makeup? Is not man's gene pool that of the creator? Of creation?  With this kind of heritage, we (the created by love) should all be able to love our neighbor, to love our God. 

Bless us creator as we are children of love – children of God...

and, to any followers, thank you for your patience (thus sayeth my presumptive ego)...mm