Time, love.

"Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble and there is always time."

This is a quote from Abdu'l Baha, founder of the Baha'i faith, a religion I know next to nothing about even though my late great bagpipe teacher, Sir Iain Millington, was a devout adherent. Anyway regardless of the religion this dude started I am inspired by this one thing he said.

I am going to be an aunt, any day now! In preparation for this joyous occasion, I've resisted making any commitments for a couple of weeks. So last week, my schedule was a bit clearer than in other weeks. Freed up from any advance plans, it ended up being a beautiful week of community-building: of spontaneous coffee dates, inviting people for supper, dropping in on friends, and even making some new connections. And it was one of the best weeks I've had in a long, long time. Meanwhile last week, the Holy Spirit spoke to me in a powerful way. I think these things must have been connected: the making time, and the Spirit.

The ideas I have been ruminating on this week are hard to put into practice and to put into living. It's the idea of being present. It's the idea of spending time on the important things: on loving the people who show up in our lives. It's the idea of letting go of the things that may give us worth in the eyes of the world-- of the programmed things, the places where we get recognition, the things we do to pad our resume.

When I read the Gospels and think about how Jesus spent his days, I think it's a simple formula. Jesus made time for prayer, and for rest. Jesus also made time for people. A lot of his ministry that's recorded in the Gospels is just him responding to the people who come to him. A woman touches him in a crowd. A man comes through the roof. A Pharisee invites him for dinner. Maybe Jesus did have a dayplanner, I don't know. But if he did, I don't think he cared about pushing some things aside to make room for the people right in front of him.

So this is what the Holy Spirit has been telling me this week: God puts people in my life and in my community so that I can love them-- so that I can reveal something about God to them and they can reveal something about God to me. When I open up my heart and my time to people, I get to experience the love of God. Spending more time on relationships and less time on other things might be a bad decision for my career or dating life or whatever else I'm 'supposed' to be doing. This is an extremely simple message, and I think to some extent I have always known it. But it often seems like I am quick to forget about what is most important in life. I fill up my schedule with things that keep me busy but don't really have any purpose in furthering God's Kingdom. But, in the words of Lilias Trotter, "it is the poured-out life God blesses."

My sister sent me this song yesterday. Jon Foreman is one of my favourite musicians, but to be honest I had forgotten all about this song. It is based on Amos 5. And it speaks to my life right now: this is what God wants from me. Genuine, authentic pouring out of my life in love and justice. Not a show.