The weekend stays on my mind. I notice that I make no demands of the people there, nor of the people in the other communities that feed me, as I often do in relationship. I don't insist people be a certain way, or act a certain way, or have a certain attitude.
To be sure, people there don't always meet my standards. If I created a list of the characteristics of my ideal community, none of the groups I am in would measure up. But when I simply experience what is there, and experience what I get out of a given community, I often find much love, joy, contentment. Needs I do not know I have are met, and the needs I think I have, I don't even think about.
My deep craving for love can make me push love away because it doesn't look the way I expect it to look. The moment I think, if only the world were this way, I become a victim, believing that I have a critical need that life is inadequate to meet. Pain we cannot avoid; being a victim is optional. Our scarcity is of our own creation, not the creation that surrounds us.
Giving up the desire to control the love I receive strips me naked. There is no longer protection from the pain of being unloved; nor is there protection from love, when it does come, with its life-altering power.
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