Butterflies by Matthijs Maris 1874

Monday, September 24, 2012

What is Love? A Meditation


Love has many faces.  Somehow we know, at its core, it is singular, but it is displayed as many fractured, contradictory personalities.  Love is about the benefit of the other, but also desire for the self.  Love is adoration, but also a mirror displaying the harsh reality.  Love is granting freedom and stirring deep violation.  Love is in the touch, the taste, the sight, the sigh, but love is also the longing, the mourning, the restlessness, the isolation.   Wrap all this together and we have still only stirred the bare surface of the depths of love.  Love is life, and is as complex as life.

Love in the flesh is a glorious thing.  Love is longing, but not knowing for what.  It is the glance that opens one’s eyes, widens the pupils and the object of love is then written in one’s soul.  We are created for this love, for this awakening and rebirth of our very selves, for this unification with the other so the one who we used to be is but a memory, a wisp of the past.  Once we have become a new creation, we build.  We create foundations, give birth, form partnerships, instill values, restore the ancient that has never been seen on earth before.  From love are traditions formed, legacies initiated, knowledge discovered and cities built. 

Creation is not love’s only legacy, however.  All that is built can also be forsaken, rejected, destroyed.  Love is a god that requires sacrifice.  Upon the altar, at one time or another, we must place our marriage, our work, our children, our livelihood, our passions, our hopes, our very souls and the souls of those whom we most deeply care for.  Love is filled with bitter tears, deep resentment and furious anger.  It is the passion that demands us and tears lives into shreds.  Love gives and love shreds, blessed be the name of love.

Yet there is another love.  A love that is not strictly human love, for human love must protect itself and its creation within a bubble of security of its own making.  There is a spiritual love, which calls to the humans, which can be glimpsed, and then it shyly withdraws.   It is the love that always gives, always forgives, always provides, always sustains, always restores, always gives life.  Love that embraces the rejected, heals the broken, rebuilds the destroyed and welcomes the outcast.  Paradoxically, this love requires nothing from the other, yet calls all to sacrifice all for the other.   And the greatest desire of this love is a people that surrenders all desires for the sake of the need.   This love is the ultimate gift without sacrifice and the ultimate sacrifice that demands all.

And this is the love that will change the world.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Tips for Living in Love



  • Try to get all your personal needs met.  Allow yourself to be content with the rest of your life. This is where the energy to love comes from.
  • Let people be who they are.  Accept that you can't change them, only encourage them.
  • Never see another person as your enemy.  The ones who hurt you just don't understand how much you need each other.  Try to show them.
  • Never demand respect.  Earn it by showing respect for others.
  • Keep your expectations for others low but your hopes high.
  • Never command.  Just request or suggest.
  • Be patient.  Once you have waited long enough, wait just a little more.
  • Serve.  Meet some needs of those most in need, and then work your way up.  (Love doesn't trickle down, it trickles up.  If the most needy in a community gets their needs met, the entire community becomes more healthy.)
  • Live and work in a community that loves and serves people outside of their own group


What tips do you have for living in love?  Write them in comments.