What Would Love Do?

I was sitting in meditation during church yesterday and a thought came to me. What if we changed every instance of the name Jesus in the Bible to the word Love? I thought to myself what a beautiful thing that might be, perhaps not practical but an interesting thing to look at.

I was pondering it on my walk this morning and found myself thinking of it in a different context as well. I was thinking about the phrase (not from the Bible of course), What would Jesus do? I wondered what would happen if I put the word Love there too. What would Love do? My heart opened wide at that thought.

I do try to let Love be my guide but I hadn’t put it such concrete terms before. In any given situation if I am unsure I can simply ask myself that question, What would Love do?

I did ask myself why bother changing it from Jesus? The answer was simple, like it or not there is a lot of baggage that comes along with the name Jesus. Some of it is shiny, sturdy baggage on wheels that you can carry your treasures in. However, some of it is the plastic bag you carry your dirty laundry in after a week long vacation – including those socks you wore on that day long hike. There are thousands of years worth of baggage that goes along with the name, things done and judgments made in the name of Jesus and God that we would rather not remember or talk about. Yet they are there in our collective memory being carried with us.

Yet, when I shifted the phrase to the essence of what Jesus represents, Love, that baggage fell away. I didn’t have to sort through my ideas of Jesus as presented to me growing up Catholic, or as heard through other Christian traditions. I could immediately feel a connection to my heart and the guidance I find there. I could immediately return to Love. And truly, isn’t Love what we find at the core of all religious traditions? For me that is the Truth, Love is at the core, it is at the core of spiritual teachings, it is at the core of you and me and each atom in the universe.

By focusing on Love I immediately connect with that Truth, that core of Love, that core of  Spirit, the Spirit that each of us is an expression of. If I can take that moment to feel it in myself then I also in that moment remember it in you or in the situation I am in the midst of. Then Love is guiding that moment.

I rejoice in imagining the glorious creations that will come from moments guided by Love and the question, What would Love do?