Today my reflection is on efficiency. Sounds strange right? Most of us think of making our life, our day more efficient. How can I get from A to Z in an efficient manor? How can I manage my time to get everything done that I need to do? If only I was more efficient.

This is an excerpt from The Awakening Heart Book by Gerald G May, MD on Opening Yourself to the love you need because it’s not about efficiency.

“…bear the beams of love. There are three meanings of bearing love: to endure it, to carry it, and to bring it forth. We are to be the birthers of love.

Yet “We have difficulty just being: we think we must get on with more important things. We have to be efficient. In becoming adults, we have been conditioned to believe that efficiency is more important than love.”

Through our journeys in the hospital and through hospice we have discovered certain aspects of each other. “You have your own personality, your own addictions, and aspirations, your own conditioning. In other words, you have your own ways of being dysfunctional. Similarly, you have your own ways of experiencing love and appreciating grace. Nevertheless, I am willing to bet that when you have your wits about you, you know that love is far more important than efficiency.”

We really do know the importance of love when our wits are about us. So how do we keep love in the forefront of our lives?

One way is to share yourself with another. Share something about you that someone might not now. Be vulnerable. Let others in. Share your time with someone you care about. Help someone in need. Be empathetic. Empathy is a component of love. It is a time when we go beyond ourselves and put ourselves in other people’s shoes. In order to truly love we need to feel what another is feeling. See empathy is the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective. If we are concentrating on how efficient we need to be we are lacking focus in others. It is truly through others that we learn to love.

Today let us pray for learning to love more and less need for efficiency. Let us pray that we try to understand others and feel another’s feeling so we can deepen our awareness of others. Let us be willing to hear other’s stories so we can journey with them. Let us be open to our ability to empathize and to let other be empathic as well. For is in journeying with each other that we find true love.