God's Love

You have first loved us, O God, alas. We speak of it in terms of history, as if you have only loved us first but a single time, rather than that, without ceasing, you have loved us first many times and every day and our whole life through.

When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul to you, you are the first. You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at the same time turn my soul towards you in prayer, you are ahead of me; you have loved me first.

When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul in thought towards you, you are the first and thus forever. And yet we always speak ungratefully as if you have loved us first only once.

~Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

And from Meister Ekhart:

"The love by which we think we are loving God is actually the love
by which God first loved us."

This last quote of God loving us first was found in Richard Rohr's book, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, which is the book we discuss in this morning's contentious Wisdom Class. How I hope this love can guide us all in listening and speaking. (That's why Kierkegaard's prayer posted above is this morning's class meditation--before the book discussions starts.)

Richard Rohr writes:

"Our lovability is not a moral achievement on our part, but God's pure gift on God's part. To paraphrase Meister Eckhart, 'The love by which we think we are loving God is actually the love by which God first loved us.' All we are doing is completing the circuit, and allowing the flow (see John 15:16). You cannot really get there; you can only be there. God does all the loving." (165-166)