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That word “allow”…

I allow you … you allow me … we allow each other.

It prompted a thought about The Greatest of These with a twist – “Allow God, allow your neighbour as you allow yourself.”

Allow.  How often I use that word in a detached way.

I allow you to  … (I give you permission to), you allow me to … (you give me permission to) …

It is a detached-intentional-allowing – an allowing of the conscious.  And like anything of the conscious it is a calculation.  A weighing-up of cost v return.

For me it demonstrated WHY the Greatest of These comes unstuck so often.

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We make “love” a conscious intentional calculated transaction.  And then wonder why we find Love Without Condition (or love as it used to be known) way outside our capacity!  Maybe it’s because any conscious intentional calculated transaction has to be  conditional.

Always.

And so too our definition of “allow” – an always conditional allowing.

Which is why when we “allow” ourselves to empty the fridge we always feel guilty afterwards.  Why we always prefix telling our best-bud about our expensive indulgent new shoes with “I know I shouldn’t have but … “  And why we invariably validate that earlier-than-we-should drink with “It’s got to be ?? o’clock somewhere in the world.”

Transaction and guilt go together.

I think allowing – like love – should be without condition.   Because only without condition does allowing AND love become guilt-free.  And if there is no guilt then there is no sin.  And if there is no guilt sin I can look deep into the eyes of you-God-myself …

And REALLY SEE what there is to see.

But – just like love – if I “allow myself” every indulgence, always “allow myself” every entitlement, always “allow myself” to come first always … that is not “allowing” – that is “having to”- and THAT is “transaction” and so … Hello guilt, being right, and being correct.

(which sounds “theologically” familiar).

Just as love with condition is NOT “love” … just as “The Law” IS necessary because love is WITH condition – then love WITHOUT condition (for God, neighbour and self) would make our need for “The Law”  … needless!.

The longer I am bible-blind the more I think The Greatest of These is all I need.  All I am.  All I can be.  But it struck me that “allowing” – and our use of that word – is the same as “love” (and our use of THAT word).

We make love “intentional” because the bible commands that we do – but as soon as we make it a command … we make it a conscious intentional calculated transaction and demolish the very meaning-essence of “the command”

Hello “The Law” – to make all things “fair and just”!

(which are both calculated transactions).

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The more I am bible-blind the more I think I must put down the bible in order to be The Greatest of These.  Because only by “being” can I become “am”.  And the Greatest of These is told to us by I Am.

And I Am sees within because nothing conditional gets in the way.  No conscious intentional calculated transaction or guilt or judgement or consequence.  But the more I study the bible the more I am conscious of the commands and imperatives – “The Law”.

So how can I be conscious of that and still love without condition (or allow without guilt)?

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