Last night as I was tucking in one of my twins, something caught my eye.
A drawing he had made was taped to the wall. And I don’t mean nicely with one small piece of blue tape. No it was taped securely with tape running left, right, up and down. It must have taken half a roll of scotch tape to get to to stay on his wall just right. I glanced across the room and saw his brother’s picture fixed in much the same way on the opposite wall.
Before I could launch into a lecture about the dangers of scotch tape on painted walls… they both looked at me and said with pride in their voices: “Don’t you love what we did with our pictures?”
We have a running joke among us where I will say to the twins “I love you…. but only on Tuesdays.” Then whichever one I am talking to will make a dramatic face and say “Awwwww…” and eventually I will recant and say “No, I love you all the time.”
And I do.
Even when they screw up my walls with scotch tape.
I came across this prayer by Thomas Merton I had never heard before today in the Jesuit prayer app. It speaks of how and why we should love one another, even it is most difficult:
“O God, we are one with you.
You have made us one with you.
You have taught us that if we are open to one another,
you dwell in us.
Help us to preserve this openness
and to fight for it with all our hearts.
Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection.
O God, in accepting one another
wholeheartedly, fully, completely,
we accept you,
and we thank you,
and we adore you,
and we love you with our whole being,
because our being is your being,
our spirit is rooted in your spirit.
Fill us then with love,
and let us be bound together with love
as we go our diverse ways,
united in this one spirit
which makes you present in the world,
and which makes you witness to
the ultimate reality that is love.
Love has overcome.
Love is victorious. Amen.”
May you be filled with love today and share that love with others – even when it ruins your walls!
