Countdown: Tomorrow Naked Spirituality is available!
Here’s the next-to-last quote in our countdown …
Jesus was right. Paul was right. John was right. The Buddha was right. Even the Beatles were right. It all comes down to love, or call it compassion if you prefer. Love is the vital connection. A life with God is a life of love. You know God by loving God. You know God by loving others. You know your neighbour, a stranger or an enemy by loving him or her. You know a tree or a bird or an ecosystem or a planet by loving it. Even yourself – you only know yourself by properly loving yourself. We are trained to see the universe in terms of fundamental forces – gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong atomic forces, and so on. But might these physical forces serve as metaphors or scaffolding for the one ultimate fundamental force in the universe, love? Could love be the gravity that brings us together, the magnetism that attracts us, the electricity that makes us shine, the powerful, tender force that holds us strongly together in community – but not so strongly as to fuse us? (Brian D. McLaren, Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in Twelve Simple Words. HarperOne, 2011, Afterword)