In his book Fidelity, Thich Nhat Hanh says “[i]n true love, you don’t exclude anyone. . . . Loving one person is an opportunity to love everyone.  The deepest gift mindfulness can bring is the wisdom of nondiscrimination.”  

Nondiscrimination liberates us to uplift the well-being of the entire world.  

There are many different religions, but the majority agree on one thing — we must love one another.

BUDDHISTS SAY: “Never is this world appeased by hatred; it is only appeased by love – this is an eternal law.”

JEWS SAY: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

MUSLIMS SAY: No one is a believer until he loves for his neighbor, and for his brother, what he loves for himself.

TAOISTS SAY: No one is a believer until he loves for his neighbor, and for his brother, what he loves for himself.

HINDUS SAY:  A man obtains a proper rule of action by looking on his neighbor as himself.

When we have faith as lovers of the universe, and as those loved by the universe and used by the universe to be loving, it does not matter what we call God.  Nor does it matter who we love or who we help because we realize that we are One.

Love is so inclusive that the question we must ask in meeting everyone is what can I give them to contribute to their well-being?  True love realizes that our gifts are not merely of the flesh but of the Spirit.

The true gift for Christmas does not come in wrapping paper.  We keep seeking from merchants what we can only find in ourselves, and that is the Spirit of a love that blesses without condition.

In John 4:18, our friend Jesus says “There is no fear in love.”

The joy of our existence demands that we leave the status quo of traditions that no longer serve us, that we abandon the contradictions of a world that excludes due to politics and positions that are personal and embrace a new world that is unlimited in a love that uplifts the unique contributions of everyone.

On February 2, 2006, Anita Moorjani experienced death after cancer devoured her body over four years, and she found herself in a state of pure joy and jubilation – without fear, anxiety, helplessness or despair.  She describes this beautiful feeling of death as a complete healing – where she was encompassed by pure, unconditional love, and energy that healed her completely. What she experienced is the love that embraces each and everyone of us.  Paul said that we live, move and have our being in love.

Deepak Chopra says that “[t]he direct experience of Spirit itself being pure love is the same knowledge that a baby begins with, in a voice that we have long forgotten, which says I am love. In the Spirit, we are unbounded by time and space, untouched by experience.”  This baby is the pure energy of Christ born in us.
This season gives us the opportunity to remember the unconditional love that is always part of us: a love that allows us to to risk our lives to help others, to rescue, to save, to support, to nurture, to teach, to give to them.

This is the season not merely to give a wrapped gift or a store-bought card but to begin the practice of looking all all whom we meet and say I love you, realizing that in that love, we find ourselves because every real love story is a story about oneness.

I am inclusive — not because I accept you expressing as me but because I accept you expressing as you; not because you are willing to conform for me but because I am willing to accept you by respecting, accepting and even honoring your differences.

The sacred text can be written in one word: love.
In love there is only one religion and one political landscape: caring about one another.  In the space of divine love, we can look deeply into everyone’s eyes, into everyone’s heart and see whoever we call God.