Being Faithful To What We Love

Contemplating the gifts of 2015 and what 2016 might bring, I consider a post I put up almost a month ago: "Find what you love & let it teach you how to live." Sometimes (often?) it is something (a way of living, a creative aspect of life, an involvement with community, a personal practice. . .) that we could not have imagined. So it might be just as accurate to say that it finds us. For me, writing has been like this.

It is a kind of grace, this being "found." And we have a choice- we can say yes or no to that which finds us- and sometimes there may be reasons to say no (or "not now.") 

When we say yes, we are committing to an unpredictable unfolding. Being faithful to what we love means we need to protect it from distractions, from idealized versions (ie- I can only write if I have months of solitude and silence- ha!) and from well-intentioned pressure to turn what we love into a means to other ends (like making a living.) What we love may bring all kinds of things into our lives, but our task is to simply give ourselves to it faithfully and receive what love is here to teach us. ~Oriah 

With gratitude to Karen Davis for her generous willingness to let me use and share her photos from Open Door Dreaming.