Being loved, or being the beloved, is not anything like being perfect. The drive for perfection we feel imposed upon us is a sure sign we don’t fully buy into or accept the truth of our belovedness or the freely given and unconditional nature of Divine Love. That said, being loved unconditionally and knowing and believing it does indeed help us to grow in wisdom and truth toward the fullness of our humanity. Being loved so completely by God or so well by a partner, family member, or friend is an incentive to want to respond lovingly (not as a reimbursement) but as a free act of self-giving in the exchange of love.

In the antiphonal movement of being fully alive and most completely ourselves, love evokes love. Not to respond is being unfaithful to the inherent design or desire of love to continually flow among and between all life forms. Not to respond to love with love is to have the audacity (or is it apathy) to dam the flow of God, for God is love. Thank God—literally—that nothing or no one is capable of stopping love which is the greatest force in the universe. Despite all conscious efforts to the contrary or unconscious betrayals, love will always find a way.

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