My friend, Ken, shared a wonderful story the other day about a healer who had become physically impaired. He had lost movement in his limbs a few years ago. The people who loved him, those who were part of his community, decided to pray for him. They discussed whether to pray for his recovery or whether to simply send love. They ended up deciding to send love.

A couple days later this healer called and said, “What did you all do? Last night I had feeling in my leg!” They continued to pray. And the healer continued to experience small and encouraging changes. Such is the power of Love!

I love this story. Sometimes it’s difficult to know how to pray. Do we pray for exactly what we want? Or do we acknowledge that in our limited human view we may not always know what is the best possible outcome for all concerned? We don’t always understand the divine plan. Perhaps someone needs to learn a certain lesson from his illness or pain. Or perhaps a caregiver needs to learn the lesson of compassion and patience and the one who is ill agreed to his “assignment” before being born. Or maybe someone accomplished her life purpose and was now free to go on to the bliss and beauty of The Other Side and it would be inappropriate for us to hold her back with our prayers.

This is why I love this story so much. I love just sending Love. We cannot go wrong with Love. Love melts away fear. Love trumps hate. Love brings peace, heals relationships, heals the Earth.

What a wonderful spiritual practice. Each day we can send Love to all those whom we love. And then we can send Love to all those whom we are not fond of. We can send Love to people we know and people we don’t know. We can send Love to animals. We can send Love to the Earth, the Air, the Water. We can send Love around the world. I made this my morning meditation the other day. I visualized waves of Love encircling the planet. It felt wonderful.

We can try the spiritual practice of breathing in Peace and breathing out Love. We can practice heart opening exercises. We can send Love out into the Cosmos and ask the Cosmos to send Love back to the Earth. We can picture loving beings like Mother Mary, Jesus, Quan Yin, Buddha, and the Archangels surrounding the Earth and beaming down radiant beams of Love. We can get creative and use our imagination to release butterflies full of Love to flutter and dance all around the world. We can send Love to the trees and imagine their leaves radiating Love into the Air. (In case you didn’t know, our imagination has very real power. What you can imagine can happen!)

We can also do the hard work of practicing Love in our day-to-day lives. When a waitress is rude to us, we can take the higher road and send her Love. (Maybe she had a really bad day.) When our spouse or parent or teenager triggers us, we can remember that in spite of our anger, we love them. Take a walk or do something to cool down and then send Love. When an infant has colic and is crying, crying, crying, send her Love. When there is an awful tragedy and someone shoots a whole room full of people, remember that we don’t know about this person’s history, health, or how he was raised. Try to conquer your anger and hatred and send Love. Send Love to him and to his family. Send Love to the victims and their families. If we were all perfectly loved, we would probably all be loving.

What if Love really is what makes the world go ‘round? What if Love keeps the Sun shining in the Sky. What if Love makes the flowers grow and the babies laugh? What if Love really is all we need?

I send you Love today. May everyone you touch feel Love. May everyone you speak to feel Love. May everyone you see or think of feel Love. May the Earth feel your Love as you walk upon it. May the Water feel your Love as you drink it. May we all practice each day the magnificent art of Love.

So be it.