Becoming a true human being, or in other words learning to love one another, is like mining for gold!

This is because within each and every karmic relationship there lies the potential of discovering gold, of discovering real love.

We can see this most clearly in the archetype of relationship, marriage. For each marriage starts off with the excitement of falling in love, of seeing the glistening vein of gold in the rock. But this excitement, this falling in love, is not yet real love, only potentially so. For just as we must separate the gold from the impurities of the ore, so must each marriage learn to burn away egotistical desires, if true love is to be found.

And yet, so often in our culture of Hollywood romance, do we mistake selfishness and eroticism for love. We mistake the realm of ‘Burning Desire’ to possess or be possessed for love. We imagine that our partner should be everything for us, satisfy all of our desires if he or she is truly ‘the one’. These illusions are the impurities of the ore surrounding the gold and they must be burned away. For the real purpose of life is not something where all my dreams and desires come true, but real life is a furnace where impurities can be burned away.

This is why in our gospel for this week, the Christ implores us to recognize our impurities, how blind and naked we are, and obtain gold from Him refined in the fire. For the gold of our true humanity is not simply a given, our true humanity must be born, again and again as love out of cleansing flame.

This contemplation is by Rev. Evans and inspired by Revelation 3, the letter to Laodicia