The Driver

A life in service to Love: it doesn't get any better than that, in my estimation. Sometimes I am nearly overwhelmed with gratitude for my work, for having fashioned a faceted livelihood--each aspect in service to Love--that perfectly suits me, enlivens and abundantly gratifies me. I can't imagine a better feeling than that borne of knowing one has found a fitting place in the world. I am fortunate, to say the least.

I remember--it's seven years ago now--a special forum for Executive Directors of non profits that I was invited to attend. At the time, I was spearheading The BeLoved Project, which I'd conceived as a vehicle for keeping love and joyful living alive and circulating at a time in life when it tends to do otherwise. "Unstoppable Love" was the Project's possibility, its intended contribution. Partway into the forum, we were asked to each stand in turn and make a short introduction of ourselves and our organization. I was a bit nervous to share about mine. My infant endeavor seemed so unsubstantial and unofficial compared to those represented in the room. Yet as I spoke, it seemed I was being well received. At break time, a woman approached me directly:

"You're so lucky," she said. "When you appeal for funding [and such], you get to say your cause is Love. Not cancer or affordable housing or whatever. It's so much more upbeat. Who wouldn't want to support Love?"

Indeed, all along the way of the BeLoved Project--a predecessor of Love's Freeway--the road was paved in Yesses. The woman was right: Love has an energy. Just as cancer has an energy, and crime has an energy, and domestic violence has an energy. A wonderful thing about that Project which is also true of Love's Freeway is that one couldn't genuinely engage in it without dwelling in Love energy. To offer the possibility of unstoppable Love to my community, I had to be unstoppable Love. What a grace and a gift that was, especially at a time when it felt as though the free flow of Love in my personal life had come to a crashing halt.

I received an email from the wife of a former writing student last week. Her husband wrote steadily for several years after our first course together, and has produced over 350 pages of memoir. He's been stuck more recently, however--not sure of how to arrange it all--and she wanted to give him coaching sessions with me as an anniversary gift to get him going again.

It warms me through and through when I receive such a request. Talk about Love in motion! A man has, clearly, a passion. He's gotten stuck in expressing it. What is it if not Love that moves his life partner to intervene, to give lift to his wings. He feels truly loved by her gesture. And I have the privilege of using my skills and capacities to set his passion free again. It's all Love: the gift is Love, the service is Love, and the passion is Love. We three have conspired to give Love Its way. How gorgeous is that!?

And so it is with Claritywork. A woman attracts only inappropriate men, and doesn't know why. In our session together, we investigate this phenomenon, dig to its root, and pull it out! Now this strikingly beautiful, intelligent, perfectly lovely woman feels free--is free--to draw the sort of man she dreams about into her midst. Here again, with the blockage removed, Love can have Its way. What a beautiful thing!

It is certainly no secret that I have a passion for Love getting Its way, and I am exceedingly grateful every time I have the opportunity to facilitate that, no matter the context. For so many others, a "Love agenda" is less obvious perhaps, but no less dominant. Implicitly or explicitly--from the staff nurse, the filmmaker, the custodian who befriends a shy boy in grade school, to the devoted parent, the cheerful cabbie, the doting restauranteur--Love is truly, thankfully, palpably everywhere present, driving countless endeavors. And I for one couldn't be happier about that.

Note: "Attentive Owl" sculpture by Gyr Penn