TV Review: "Everybody Loves Raymond"

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In an episode of this half-hour sitcom, a main character, Deborah, complains that her husband Ray is deficient in Lovexpression. He wants to find out why, and asks his father Frank, usually an emotionally cool and distant person, a very study in emotional inexpression. Ray's brother Robert soon joins the conversation, and the family undergoes a very short-lasting (momentary) metamorphosis. Everyone becomes very selfconscious, and deeply embarrassed, but they begin to tell each other
that they love one another.
This is very soon perceived as an extreme embarrassment, and everyone is apologetic and ashamed. Deborah says that she is sorry that she ever brought up the subject, and Frank says that it should never be mentioned again.
This view towards Love, and Lovexpression, is the very root of much of what is wrong with our families, communities, and societies. Why on earth should a person feel embarrassed, ashamed, or selfconscious because she expresses Love towards her loved ones? She should not; instead, she should feel happy and fulfilled; she is doing what she was created to do.
The Baron family, in this episode, treats Love as if it were some obscene secret, to be mentioned only in private, and never acknowledged-- at least, not on a regular basis. This fearbased attitude towards Love is a corrosive that eats away at family unity, loyalty, joy, fun, and general open sharing.
So, as the people of Love, let us embrace the opposite perspective: Let us unashamedly express Love as often, and as openly, as possible. Let us express Love, of many kinds, in as many varieties as we know. Try to tell loved ones that you love them as often as possible. For our tiny planet is starving for Love, and for Lovexpressions.
Let us not be "shamed" into making It a big, dark secret. Love, like charity, to which It is related, begins at home; let us never be ashamed of It, or allow Its expression to make us selfconscious.
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Lovexpression

As the people of Love, our hearts motivate us to, and we vow to, love everyone-- without exception, including friends, enemies, and strangers.

In fact, Love is the most healing and joyful activity in the world! It is utterly fulfilling, for It is the reason that we were first created by ("emanated" from) the One, the only Mind in existence. Love moves us towards primal Union, or reunion, with the Mind of Love, or Godmind. So, Love is the key to fulfillment, satisfaction, and utter contentment.

Love is indescribably beautiful. It is what all human beings most deeply want to express, and to share, with other human beings, and with other creatures-- even with the Goddess (God) and the "angels. The world is starving for Love! (Someday, we will be challenged to share this same Love with extraterrestrials as well.)

So, Love is the most fun a human being can possibly have! It is as satisfying biologically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as finding a glass of cold water when we are thirsty. Love alone fills the needs of the human Soul; nothing in the universe can replace It.

Although we know that all this is true, nevertheless, we must exercise caution in everyday Lovexpression. We can feel the infinite Love of God shining and glowing in our hearts. But we cannot always safely express It.

Why not? Why cannot the lover of all humanity express Love freely, hugging everyone, and telling her, "I love you"?

It is because of the dull and primitive, backwards and arrested, programming of society. For society, from poprock music to commercials, popularly programs people to believe that the word "Love" is, or should be, limited to sexual and/or romantic Love.

We who study agapology-- the art and science of Love-- know that Love can mean a wide spectrum of a million more things. But people are so mercilessly and incessantly, relentlessly programmed to see "Love" as romance or sex, you are very likely to be misunderstood if you express "Love" to a stranger. This is tragic, unfortunate, and very, very sad.

What it implies is that we all must exercise caution.

If we are not to end up being labeled, or taken to a mental hospital or police station, we must temper all our Lovexpressions with strangers. (Joyfully, we need not do this among the people of Love, who understand the many types and powerlevels of Love.)

In Greek, there are several words for "Love." One of them, the Greek eros, originally referred to Love as a cosmic force that held the cosmos together. It was eros that held hydrogen and oxygen together in water-molecules. But, in time, this word came to mean or to imply sexual or romantic Love.

And "erotophobia"-- the fear of sexual or romantic Love or involvement-- is quite common. So, in all Lovexpression, we show Love by respecting the boundaries and limitations of people. We are never controlled by their fears, but, out of kindness, must respect their sensitivities. This means that, although we withold no Love, we must, at times, withold Lovexpression: It is not always good or appropriate fully to express Love to a stranger; we must take a few steps back, and approach the matter with caution, so as never to be intrusive or invasive of the other's privacy.
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"New Spiritual Insights"

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There are always "new spiritual insights," if you mean those not familiar or known to you, me, or others. But, more profoundly, do any really "new spiritual insights" exist in the cosmos?

This is a profound question, as the cosmos is always changing and evolving under the direction of Love, often acting through universal law (including karma). Since God is also always changing, as Lovexpression, there is no reason to suppose that the cosmic Mind (God) cannot also create new spiritual or cosmic insights. Indeed, She has an infinite ability, a bottomless reservoir, that makes this not only possible, but probably inevitable.

The Mind is always dreaming, and always dreaming up new beings, worlds, and even universes. Therefore, it would be antiprogressive to believe in any "static" truth, as truth is reality, and reality is more often like a fluid than a solid. It is, in fact, one of the major challenges of the mystical (enlightened) mind to approach a state of semi-fluidity, flexibility, and adaptation in order to keep pace with the cosmos.

If we allow our minds to become like bricks, then, we are caught in paralysis and petrification; we have stopped growing. Knowledge, especially in its manifestation as gnosis, is not a finite reality, but a limitless one. So, new concepts and ideas are always coming into being, and some, no doubt, represent "new truths" (realities).

Fundies are terrified by this mutable and mutating cosmos. They like to have everything "locked down," everything in nice, orderly but finite little categories like Pez pellets lined up in a dispenser. While this might seem to be "neater," or even "more orderly," this is not compatible with an infinite universe existing within a bottomless and breath-taking Mind.
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