Last year, my son and his wife announced that they were having a baby. Instead of joy, I cried for two solid months in grief and despair ("what have they done!").
And then, the baby was born. My heart exploded with such fierce love for him, it just blew me away how much love it unleashed in my heart. God came to me disguised as this baby. What an incredible gift!
Very true. According to Dr. Gabor Mate, infants need two things: to express authenticity and attachment to caregivers: if you are taught by your parents that you'll only be loved if you don't cry, you learn to repress your real self (i.e. not express your authentic true self) in order to still get the attachment you need for survival. I think it's a real tragedy in our society that too many parents expect their babies to adapt to Mom and Dad's expectations, thereby repressing the child's true self. This creates traumatized people, who in turn, end up being traumatized parents. A must-read book regarding this is Dr. Mate's most excellent "The Myth of Normal" .
I had a momentary experience, 20 years ago, during my forest walk, that I can only describe (words can barely explain this) as a mystical revelation: everything dropped away, and all that remained was a dynamic state of full awareness, when the sacred context of Life was disclosed, a pure consciousness event of transcendence, an embrace by of Love, the most profound moment of my life, ineffable and noetic, and suddenly my whole being "understood". We are lived by Love, we must strive to live in Love, to align our hearts and minds with One/Love/All. Ever since then, I have come across many people who have had such experience, though they don't talk about it, as I don't either, because it does sound "nonsensical" to those who've not experienced this. Thank you for sharing this essay, every word resonates fully my experience: knowledge was 1John4: "God is Love." Understanding is living it fully, daily, wholeheartedly.