Reciprocity of Love
Get comfortable in your seat. You may wish to close your eyes. Sitting still and sitting straight, sit in the faith that God is already present here, all without and and within you. And in this practice you are opening yourself to the direct realization of this Presence.
Sitting still and sitting straight, I invite you to become aware of your body. Notice if there are any places in which you are holding tension…and one by one as you notice those places draw your breath all the way to those places.
Sitting still and sitting straight, now attend to your mind. It may be busy and chattering, naming, commenting, judging…Just invite your head to sink into your heart, to be immersed there.
Sitting still and sitting straight to express the interior alertness or interior wakefulness.
And now, as you draw breath into your lungs, hear from the center of your being the Beloved's word to you, "I love you." And as you exhale, return that love with, "I love you." you give yourself to the love that gives itself to you. In the I love you received and the I love you response, the reciprocity of love and of the communion deepens.
Now while you are sitting there saying this prayer, let's say there is bodily pain. Now when you inhale, you inhale Infinite Love, loving you pain and all, through and through and through and through and through. And when you exhale yourself into God, you give yourself, pain and all, into the Love that loves you, pain and all.
Let’s say you are sitting there and you are confused; something has happened and you are bewildered. You sit there and as you breathe in God, you breathe in God loving you, confusion and all, through and through and through and through and through. And when you exhale yourself in the I love you, you give yourself, confusion and all, to the Love that loves you, confusion and all.
And let’s say you are sad, and you breathe in God loving you through and through and through, sadness and all; and you exhale yourself in your sadness. Then your sadness is an act of love. And so, in every reciprocity of love, the ultimate irrelevance of conditioned states yields and gives way to Love that unexplainably sustains you in the conditions in which you exist.
Now while you are sitting there saying this prayer, let's say there is bodily pain. Now when you inhale, you inhale Infinite Love, loving you pain and all, through and through and through and through and through. And when you exhale yourself into God, you give yourself, pain and all, into the Love that loves you, pain and all.
Let’s say you are sitting there and you are confused; something has happened and you are bewildered. You sit there and as you breathe in God, you breathe in God loving you, confusion and all, through and through and through and through and through. And when you exhale yourself in the I love you, you give yourself, confusion and all, to the Love that loves you, confusion and all.
And let’s say you are sad, and you breathe in God loving you through and through and through, sadness and all; and you exhale yourself in your sadness. Then your sadness is an act of love. And so, in every reciprocity of love, the ultimate irrelevance of conditioned states yields and gives way to Love that unexplainably sustains you in the conditions in which you exist.
As you breath in, again receive God's word of love all the way into your being. Breathe that love all the way into the places where you may feel anger, sadness, stuckness, confusion, etc. and on your exhale, offer your love from that same place. As Saint Symeon invites, “Open your heart [and body] to him and let yourself receive the One who is opening to you so deeply.”
As we breathe in we hear the Beloved’s I love you, and as we breathe out, we return that love….Just inviting you to stay with that about 5 minutes, or longer, until it feels complete….If you notice that you’ve become distracted, simply return your attention to your breath and to the words, I love you. When this time has come to a close, you are invited to gently return your attention to your surroundings.
You may wish to take an additional few minutes to journal about what you experienced in this time of prayer.
(Gratitude to James Finley for this prayer)