You, Ex Nihilo

What surprises me most about love is how uncomfortable and risky it can be. While it fills us with the heady feelings of safety and joy and delight, it simultaneously pushes us beyond our comfort zones, beyond what we thought feasible, beyond what we dared expect of ourselves, beyond our bruised and tender “edges”. Love stretches us to promise “I do” for a lifetime. To welcome a child into the world and give her more of yourself than you knew you had. To travel great lengths or donate more of your time and money than you would have dreamed. To spend hours beside a hospital bed, or learn how to administer shots, insert catheters, monitor blood sugar, and hold dying hands without recoiling. Love leads you into more of the messy, meaningful side of life than you had planned.

That’s what love does, because that’s what love has always done. That’s what Divine Love did from the beginning, and what Divine Love will always do through you. Love stretches you past the edges of yourself.

And then comes the most mystical, astounding, scariest part of all: when you dare to reach beyond your edges, there you are. Created anew. Lovelier, truer, and more alive than ever.

You, Ex Nihilo

The ancients say Creation is
the overflow of Love.
In the beginning 

the Love within God 
expanded and stretched 
into the formless void

like breath in a balloon until - BAM - 
Behold! The stars and flowers 
and raccoons and pufferfish and people

and the hollow void was no more,
pushed beyond sight, just past the
edge of awareness.

So it is now, as it was then -
Love spills over, wine dripping from
the table to hallow the floor.

Love reaches for the jagged edges 
of your comfort, hope, possibility, 
self; edges that wound and scar.

Behold!  Love pushes these edges
farther, farther, farther still until  
- BAM - you at your truest, ex nihilo.