This is the third in a series of posts this February featuring selections from our new spiritual novel, Dialogues With the Lord of Time, which is being rolled out this month in various formats, as detailed on our Home page.
For this post, we’ll excerpt four sections from Dialogues. Because today is St. Valentine’s Day, we will, appropriately, feature citations that speak of Divine and Universal Love.
The Exercise of Love
“And so when you pray, rather than dwelling on your flaws, focus instead on joyfully interacting with a caring, infinitely loving God. Visualize you and God exchanging volleys of innocent love. Or, as [Jan van] Ruysbroeck nicely put it, ‘the exercise of love between ourselves and God flashes to and fro like the lightning in the sky.’ ”
Better a Small Portion Served with Love
“Remember also, Jesus taught us to ‘love your neighbor,’ and equally, to ‘love your enemies.’ He never placed any limits on this love. He didn’t teach us to bracket off this person or to exclude that group of people—to love some while hating others. Recall the Proverb, ‘Better a small portion of vegetables served with love, than a fattened ox served with hatred.’ Jesus taught us to love others unconditionally and to forgive others unconditionally, without any boundaries or restrictions. We may not always condone another’s behavior or lifestyle, especially if their actions adversely affect us, but we must see through their outer persona and love their inner essence with this same unrestricted spiritual love. ‘Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.’ ”
The Loving Embrace of God
“The devotee is thereby infused with the blissful intoxicating raptures of spiritual union, which enfold them in the all-inclusive, loving embrace of God. Their very soul is saturated with God’s essence in a kind of spiritual osmosis whereby the devotee absorbs the core of God’s being, as it were. This divine infusion is transmitted to the devotee as a tangible inundation of unlimited love and pure unalloyed bliss. This exalted inner communion, wherein the essences of God and devotee seemingly intermingle, pervades the deepest recesses of the devotee’s soul.”
Love Unconditionally
(Note: This excerpt is not the main character Father Christopher speaking, but rather a teaching,
akin to a revelation, that Father Christopher transcribed in his Journal.)
“Love unconditionally, regardless of how others treat you. Love is the strongest force. Never allow outside influences to affect your love. Let the flame of unconditional, nonjudgmental love burn brightly in your heart at all times. Never extinguish it with condemnation, envy, or anger—these emotions only imprison you within their confining walls. Be a walking, living, breathing pillar of love, a blazing reservoir of divine solace and compassion.”
We will continue in February with more on Dialogues With the Lord of Time, before resuming our regular posts in March.
Note: All excerpts from Dialogues With the Lord of Time are copyright 2023 by John Roger Barrie, All Rights Reserved.
