One of my earliest memories is of standing in front of our congregation with the children’s choir, singing “Jesus Loves Me” – and all of a sudden believing it. I remember there was sunshine streaming in from high windows, and the shafts of sunlight were filled with what I know now were dust mites but at the time looked like flakes of silver. I felt loved. Ever since then, God has been real to me as an entity of love. Even if I wasn’t feeling it in a given moment, I could remember the feeling, and know it reflected a transcendent reality.
I thought of this recently when reading a review of the book Chinaberry Sidewalks by Rodney Crowell. He wrote:
"As a boy my favorite place in the world was my grandmother's apron-covered lap. Rocking on her lap … I remember knowing for the first time that I was loved. In time I came to understand the nature of her love as being part of an even greater love, one that loved my grandmother for loving me."
That’s it! The transcendent LOVE he describes is what I believe God is – and we, whether we know ourselves to be people of God or not, can be channels of the Love, vehicles for it. In Christian terminology, we can act as Love “incarnate” – Love in the flesh.
How cool is that?
