This week, try to get concrete and specific with these two great commandments.  Write a love letter every day this week.  Okay, try for five out of seven.

First, write one to God.  Try to name specific ways in which you love God, specific things you love about God.  Maybe look up some love poems for inspiration.  It doesn’t matter whether you are feeling loving when you write—you can write it out of your logical, thinking mind if the feelings aren’t stirring just then.  The key is, be specific and concrete, out of your own personal experience.

Then, on the other days of the week, write a love letter each day about a “neighbor.”  It might be a specific person in your life whom you know personally (living or dead, near or far).  Or it might be a “neighbor” you know only through the media, or through books, or because you saw them in passing, or whatever.

And you may address your letter to your neighbor, or to God about your neighbor. But again, be specific and concrete about why and how you love this neighbor.  Once more, write “as if,” whether or not you are feeling feelings of warmth and affection at the time of writing.  But be honest.

Towards the end of the week, take a little time to reflect on this exercise.  Notice what was hard or easy; what seemed to flow and what seemed forced; in what ways it allowed you to appreciate things you already knew, and in what ways it opened up something new for you.  Talk with God about what you notice.