Part 3: Action
(Welcome back! If you were looking for my Vault Post or Psalms Project edition, I skipped it last week as I was being a Loving Presence by helping a neighbor move in to his new home.)
On to Part 3: Action. We all have seen a director of a movie yell “Action”. It’s time to act and perform the scene. So it is with Aligning with Love: Nice ideas and concepts are wonderful, but they must show up in our day-to-day lives! I began this trilogy asking what were our Intentions for life, and made the case that being loving is the best intention we can have. I then spoke of Responses and that developing a rhythm of releasing, receiving, and continuing were some very helpful responses. (Scroll back in either WordPress or Substack.)
What about action? What is it, even? The Dictionary says: a: a thing done : deed b: the accomplishment of a thing usually over a period of time, in stages, or with the possibility of repetition c: actions plural : behavior, conduct https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/action
I love all of these. I like that part of the definition of an action is that it is a process. Being a Loving Presence is a process. You will fail, and I will fail. But we get back up. We ask God–yes, God, for help. If “god” is not something you are fond of–give Him/Her a try. You might be very surprised what may happen. If there is a loving, caring God, (which I believe very much in), wouldn’t He/She be very willing to help their child who is asking to be more like them? I truly think this endeavor to be loving, which seems so absent in some corners of this world, a lot of corners actually, needs Divine Help. Still not liking the “god” idea? Humor me: Just whisper in times of trouble, or when clarity is needed:
“Show me. Guide me. Lead me.”
Can it hurt? What if somebody, or something “picked up”? If you are religious or spiritually minded, you will find this easier, but we all know that sometimes we don’t want to see, be guided, or led. We too often prefer to stubbornly struggle. I know, and I get it, as I do the same thing. As said before, my day job is accounting, and sometimes those numbers don’t want to behave, balance, or reconcile. Sometimes, I do not know what to do–and must go to my “tool kit”, so to speak, of my own past experiences, math, and reports, and the like, to figure out my problem. But the first tool–the first action should be to ask: Show me, guide me, lead me.
In my half-century of life of trying to embrace, live, and deepen into my Christian Practices, I have found that there is a “Sense” in most circumstances, of how to proceed. It may not be the whole picture. For example: I don’t suddenly see an imaginary chalk board with the accounting problem solved on it. But if I can only do some of that releasing I wrote about, I can have a “nudge” to look at this report, or recheck my numbers. In other words, there is an intuition, an “Inner Sense”, of what to do next. It’s not the full solution, but the next step to take. Good Lord, do I stink at actually letting myself be shown, guided, or led! I would rather complain, listen to the false-narrative “I am not good enough, smart enough, etc.” and then spiral down a “slip-and-slide” of internal negative-self talk.
Then I have to eventually “dig myself out” of that headspace with prayer and meditation, reading and journaling, and then get back to the problem. I added drama and time to something, that if I had just listened to what we Christians call the “still small Voice”, (1st Kings 19:11-12 in the Hebrew Scriptures) so much energy and time could have been saved!
Align with Love is not a productivity blog, but so many of us spend so much time in our heads, and headiness, we miss life passing us by! There is a better way: Ask to be shown, guided, and led. I actually start each day that way. I get down on my knees, and part of what I pray is this:
“Show me your Intentions for me today. Guide me in my responses. Lead me in my Actions.”
Does it help? Yes–it does focus me. But I have to keep returning to it. I must keep choosing to receive Alignment. I write it that way, as I don’t think you can really force yourself to be loving, or aligned, for very long. I spoke of this back in the opening days of this blog, in my post “Alignment” https://align-with-love.com/2026/03/02/alignment/ I wrote about the “Great Flow” of the Universe, and that we need to learn how to “flow” with that “Great Flow”. We must learn how to Align ourselves with it, which I believe to be the Spirit of God, inhabiting all things.
So, I ask again: What are your intentions for your life? What will be your responses internally to get you in a mindset, or heart-space, to get there? What actions will you take to become that? You may not like any of my ways of looking at these three. That’s fine–but the questions are valid, regardless. If you are willing to go with me on this journey of Renewed-Loving, ask yourself these questions to start “recalibrating your heart”, to paraphrase the mystic James Finley.
Some of us are tired of losing our temper, again. Some of us are tired of saying that snippy thing, again. Some of us are tired of letting that person hurt us, again, as we still believe the garbage coming out of their mouth. Part of the solution, is to ask to be shown, guided, and led.
It can never hurt to ask. It can never hurt to ask God/Spirit/Great Flow for some help. As said in one of my very first posts, “Transitions”:
Eugene Peterson wrote in his “Message” Translation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand – out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.” (The Message, Romans 5:2-12, bold text my own) https://align-with-love.com/2026/02/07/transitions/
God is indeed for you, even if you don’t believe it. (Richard Rohr says this so wonderfully in the “Divine Dance”–highly recommend.) So, try Aligning with this Being, with some new intentions, responses, and actions. Ask for help–it is right there for you. Always has been. Always will be.
Until next time,
-Eric, the Wordsmith
BP38
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