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More love!

More love!

Last updated on: January 14, 2015 at 12:22 pm by John Shore

More love! 2015-01-14T12:22:30-08:00 John Shore

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ah, a new year!

The new year!

Happy New Year!

I wonder if this year, like the last one, will be divided into 365 days, and seven days a week, and twelve months?

Har! Implied cynicism!

Always a winner.

And always (as cynicism must always be) a loser.

Anyway, I don’t like to give advice.

Well, I don’t like to give unsolicited advice. Of course I’m always honored when anyone writes to ask me for advice.

But to out of nowhere offer the same?

Pffft. Relationship fail.

So, by way of failing in my relationship with you, gentle reader (or, you know: with you, wrathfully disconsolate Christian fundie looking for yet another reason to bombard me with emails, the main message of which [alas!] is, “I haven’t quite yet grasped the basics of capitalization”), allow me to offer this bit o’ advice for the year of our Lord 2014.

Don’t be too hard on yourself.

Giveth thyself a break. Seriously.

Life is hard. It’s brutal. It’s relentless. It’s devastatingly confusing.

It never stops coming at you.

If you get one part of your life together, the rest of it goes to You Know What. If you focus on one thing, everything else … severely pixilates. If you try to do it all, you end up in a curled ball on your couch watching mucho episodes of Downton Abbey or Breaking Bad. (Both phenomenal choices, by the way. Good call!)

All of us are rejected from a (from the!) womb; all of us start out for years helplessly hopeless; all of us live our lives knowing that we are inescapably destined, probably miserably and painfully, to croaketh.

Whoo-hoo! Happy New Year!

So give yourself a break. It’s not supposed to be easy. And none of us is supposed to be perfect.

All we’re supposed to do is love, and be loved.

So … more love! Make it; get it; insist on it. That’s my main advice, pretty much always.

Feel as fully as possible the love you already feel for others—really sink down into that love: swim in it, revel in it, stay in it and go where it takes you. And as much as you are able, consider yourself as lovable as anyone else on the planet.

Because you most certainly are.

Own that truth! Or at least let others own it for you. That’s pretty much your best bet anyway. (For who among us actually feels lovable?)

And also, advice-wise, if I might: in this new year every so often close your eyes, take a deep breath or ten, and feel God/the divine/The Big Force moving into you.

Also: laugh. Laugh, laugh, laugh. Remember that Le Funny is always there, waiting for you to find it, to lighten your load, to put anything and everything in God’s Own Context.

Humor never fails. It’s the defense against everything about life that isn’t funny at all.

To my fellow Christians: May this be the year that the spirit of God speaks to you more directly than ever.

To my non-Christian friends: May this be the year that everything you want comes to pass.

To all of us: More love, please. God knows we—all of us—deserve it.

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