Loving kindness

I'm always grateful when I wake up early enough on a Sunday AM to catch On Being. This week's  episode, an interview with Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest famous for his gang intervention programs in Los Angeles, is no exception. Here are some favorite excerpts:

Well, if you presume that God is compassionate loving-kindness, all we're asked to do in the world is to be in the world who God is. And so you're always trying to... imitate the kind of God you believe in. You want to move away from whatever is tiny-spirited and judgmental, as I mentioned. But you want to be as spacious as you can be that you can have room for stuff. And love is all there is, and love is all you are. And you want people to recognize the truth of who they are, that they're exactly what God had in mind when God made them. . .

I read once that the Beatitudes was — the original language was not "Blessed are" or "Happy are" the single-hearted or those who work for peace or struggle for justice. The more precise translation is "You're in the right place if …" And I like that better because it turns out the Beatitudes is not a spirituality. It's a geography. It tells you where to stand. You're in the right place if you're over here.
So, I come from Hollywood where we say, “Location, location, location.” And it's about location. You really have to go out. But knowing that service is the hallway that leads to the ballroom, you don't want to have service be the end. It's the beginning. It's getting you to the ballroom, which is the place of kinship, the place of mutuality, that place that everybody knows here. When you go there, you go, “Who is receiving from whom? Who's the service provider? Who's the service recipient?” You hear yourself say that. “I know I'm here at the soup kitchen, but, my God, I'm getting more from this.” You know, everybody knows this. But it doesn't happen unless you break out. And fear is just fueled by ignorance. So you have to break out of our ignorance. We have to go to the place that frightens us, you know?

That Moon Language (by the 14th-century Persian poet Hafiz)

"Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, 'Love me.'
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?"

If you don't have time to listen to the entire show, the transcript is here.

And last but not least, a shot from almost 2 years ago, 10.April.2013