Embody Love, Be Love

What is love, and how can we embody love more fully in our lives? How can we BE LOVE for ourselves and others?

Love seems so simple, but it is hard to put into words. While we cannot see it or measure it, we know love when we experience it. When you think of the word love, what is the first thing that comes to mind? A word, a phrase, an image, a song? There is no shortage of answers, but many simply say family, friendship, or relationships. This might be why ‘Love your neighbour’ is almost universally ascribed to. Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism all accept this precept as the golden rule. Many might even consider it an Australian value.

Christian scriptures often speak about love. The entire passage found in 1 John is caught up with love, not merely as an attribute of God, but as the very blueprint of God, embracing everyone and everything. ‘God IS Love’, the evangelist John tells us. That great universal mystery, that blueprint of love, here since the beginning, became visible in the person of Jesus. No wonder it was his reason for being. Love, Jesus said, is the greatest commandment, our prime directive. Love God! Love your neighbour! Love yourself!

With this in mind, the Year 10 Reflection Day, held on Wednesday, embraced the Embody Love program, which supported students to explore and experience a ‘cosmic force’ of universal love. It encouraged students to ask: How can we embody it more fully? How can we make it visible in our lives? How can we align more with it and allow it to flow more vitally through our bodies, our hearts, our minds? How can we BE LOVE?

Embody Love was designed to help us connect with the flow and energy of love in the hope that we might strongly remember who we truly are at the very core of us, that we are love, pure love. And that when we are moving in the direction of who we truly are, we are becoming love…and co-creating in love with all the infinite amazing possibilities that brings. That is who we are. That is our purpose. We are fearfully and wonderfully made in love, by love, and for love.

The learning intentions of each of our four rotational sessions of the day are summarised below:

  • I Am, Because We Are: to accept self in relationship to others and strengthen the common bonds in the Year 10 Community.
  • Being Youer Than You: to let go of expectations of perfection and cultivate self-love.
  • Holding Space for You and I: to grow in acceptance and compassion for ourselves and others.
  • To Be Love: To be open to the possibility of expanding in love so that we might BE LOVE in a more powerful way for ourselves and others.

Thank you to our Year 10 students for the enthusiasm, joy, and reverence they bought to all parts of the day. Thank you also to our Religious Education staff, who facilitated each session, Year 10 Dean, Lisa Taylor and Homeroom teachers for their support. 

We hope to have inspired a sense of embodying love in all shapes and forms in our students and staff.

What A Term! So Many Opportunities – Jennifer Oaten

As I look back on the past nine weeks, I am so grateful for who we are as a community and what we have achieved. Through the dedication of our staff and the enthusiasm of our students, we have established new connections, immersed ourselves in opportunities and worked through challenges.

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