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 12 Mar 2006 @ 19:19
Love is not simply about individuals. As much as we might try to escape it, we are corporate creatures.
Our welfare consists in figuring out who we are, who we are in relationships, and who we are corporately within a group.
So, I need to love myself- not be self-destructive, realize my potential, and make choices that benefit me.
Second, I need to invest in others, and not only for satisfaction sake, but realizing that it is our highest potential to care about the needs and welfare of others.
Third, realize that we sink or swim as a society, and that is micro- the community, and macro- the nation and the world.
If we lose sight of the greater vision, and think that life is simply about me stuffing my face, I may make "me" happy in the short run, but be a part of why the world is sailing to hell in a hand-basket.
Sure, I believe love is divine, and the center of all purpose in the Universe; but I can't sell that to someone who believes everything is random. However, I have never met someone secular or religious who doesn't want love, and comprehend its value. It is that hard-wired into us that we cheer for love, and are disappointed when we see lack of compassion displayed.
All the same, we need to elevate the conversation of society to the point where it impacts the boardrooms and governments. Where people second guess their rash actions.
I want to convict presidents and governments, kings and princes, that love is the highest way. Every motivation other than love is inferior. Some might say in the hierarchy of motivations, faith, hope and love are greatest, and of these love is the greatest.
Well, then, all choices made in fear, anger, callous disregard must be questioned, and people need to ask, "What would love do?"
Would love poison water? Would love disregard the impact of an action on all life?
In terms of corporate thinking, if I ran a company poluting the stream, would I want my kids drinking from it? Well, somebodies kids are drinking from it.
Some think of love as trite, and that is absolutely horrid thinking. It is the most powerful motivator when grasped.
We can't suppose people wouldn't understand this, but we have to be sold on it to the point of being vocal. The world needs convictions. Some think a convictionless world would lead to less wars. Everyone could get along if no one believed in anything. Well, that won't work because we are hard-wired to search for meaning. No one is content just eating. We need touch, affection, and science proves this in many studies. Life begins to shrivel when nurture is withheld. Babies who are neglected, who have physical needs met but no touch, fail to thrive.
It is wrong thinking to assume no convictions is an answer. But again, we need to be careful about convictions. We need to start with the one conviction mankind can agree upon. Love is one of them.
Love derails every foolish argument. If people are religious or secular, they cannot get around this. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" would wipe out a lot of nonsense. People would offer mercy instead of judgment, wherever possible. We would look for reasons to help, not harm.
One definition of love is taking into account how our actions benefit others. So, faced with any decision, I ask, "What would love do?"
And this is not pie in the sky. I may fail, but at least I would know I failed and there is something to be strived for. More >
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8 Mar 2006 @ 13:42
Love is something we intuit on the deepest level, because it is both a hunger and a homing device. We thirst for it, and desire it from the moment we break free from the womb. And also, there is a voice within that tells us this is not only a means, but an ends, and we want to find "Love".
We know it by its fruit, and yet, we live in a fallen world, where people are self-absorbed, wounded, often incapable of expressing love. And over time, that belief in love fades, and we wonder what true love looks like. The more used and abused and betrayed we are, the more likely we become skeptical. We wonder if love is obtainable; and yet, we have countless examples of those who lost themselves in love for others. "The Mother Theresas of the world." Still, we want to see proof for ourselves, to taste and touch love, and to come to that place where we can express it for others to taste and touch.
I once believed- disbelieved in love. It was not that I lost that compass telling me it was there somewhere. However, I didn't see it demonstrated. It seemed only there as an ideal, not a reality.
Jaded, I looked at the world and said, "People don't really love. They are too selfish. They simply mutually use and abuse each other so long as they get something out of the deal, sex, companionship, exchange of feigned compliments.
Yet that compass was still drawing me, telling me love is right, seek love, express love. But emotional starvation made me crave, and I did not know how to give it. I fell short, and wondered if the best I could do is offer selfish-seconds. I wanted it, but couldn't give it, and at the same time, knew love existed on some etherial island I couldn't get to.
I am no longer jaded, and believe in love, express love, and I am loved.
However, the next step is to define "what love" we aspire to give, and recieve- sacrificial other centered-love, or selfish, you-make-me-feel-good love? And there are shades of love in between. Most people are satisfied for a reciprical giving, in fact elated, and are not interested in giving a selfless love. Yet, within us, that homing device is saying, "It is there if you are but willing to pay the price. Come!"
I want that kind of love, to give it, get it, and bask in it. It hurts. It forgives. It overlooks offenses. Yet, it wants fellowship, to become more than friends, one with others, to know and be known.
Identifying that love exists and that we want the highest love is only the beginning of a journey. The next step is identifying not only what we want, but who we are, who this other person is? So, love becomes a quest, and not simply a definition of what to do and not to do. There are roadblocks, difficult people, and our own difficult attitudes and desires. We put up walls and run into walls, and know that walls have to come down to reach the highest love.
We, all of us, are like a spirit encased in a ton of barnacles. We exist beneath all sorts of junk that attaches itself to us throughout life. I am more than news, weather and sports, but what am I? Am I changing? Can someone love a moving target?
We should be moving targets, because if we are staying the same, we aren't growing, and growth is essential to finally becoming a human being, and not a wooden puppet.
I want to be a real boy. I want to be loved for who I am, and not the barnacles, not the trophies, not the looks-which fade with years. And so, the search for love is a pilgrimage of the soul to discover who we are at the core, and who everyone else is at their core, undefiled. And frankly, the end result is falling into each other, not sexually, but in the sense of drinking purely from another's spirit, and have them drink from ours, and we are refreshed there.
Nate More >
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 1 Mar 2006 @ 19:14
“Love me for who I am!” This sounds like a reasonable request. Love is grand, and don’t we all want to be loved for who we are. The question is “Who are we, really?”
I’m not trying to get all metaphysical here. In a very real sense, people don’t know who they are. We may think other people don’t understand us, when the bigger problem is that we don’t understand ourselves.
Surface love: We generally respond to people on a very surface level. If they smile at us, we smile back. If they say hello, we say ‘hello’. However, smiles and hellos can be false. A person can say “Hope you have a great day!” and inwardly be thinking, “I wish you would drop dead!” Still, when we like people it’s generally because of common interests, and things like point of view, and similar perspectives and shared experiences.
In truth people are deep wells, and what we see outwardly does not reveal the complexity of what is in their hearts.
There is a problem with making superficial judgments. If we liked someone because they were like us, chocolate ice cream lovers, what happens if their tastes change? Yesterday they loved our favorite flavor, but now they are sick of chocolate. Does this mean we don’t love them anymore?
Forget chocolate, if we presume to love another person only because of “shared experiences” we are falling in love with quicksand. People change tastes and preferences. One minute they like a musical preference, a favorite color, a similar political view, a shared religious view. What if they change their minds about things? Are they the same person? Do we really love them, or simply love similarity and shared views?
If I want someone to love me, I have to determine who and what I am. If I want to love another, I have to determine who and what they are. Otherwise, our love is really quite fragile, a vapor that appears and blows away in the stiff winds of life. I for one don’t like falling in and out of love. Therefore, I believe it is absolutely important to understand the basis of humanity, the potential within each person.
We are either stagnant or growing. If we are growing then we are changing, and if we are changing, at any given time, we might be uncomfortable with ourselves, and we might make others feel uncomfortable. “I don’t want to eat chocolate anymore…can’t we talk about vanilla today?” We want to expand and think and talk about different things.
This is threatening to those who are staying the same. “You never said you liked vanilla before…why don’t you eat chocolate like you used to?”
Stagnant is not a natural state. In general if someone is not growing, they are purposing to resist growth. Perhaps they fear growing, and sameness is a safe environment for them. However, intimacy is impossible with people who hate growth. They put up protective walls, “I’m Mr. Sports Nut. Unless you talk to me about jock things, I have nothing left to say…so come to me speaking sports trivia or leave me alone! Don’t talk to me about meaning of life things. I can’t stand heavy conversations.” That isn’t growth. This is how people put up walls to avoid thinking. I, for one, am not threatened by people that disagree with me. If they are thinking, I generally find something stimulating in interacting with them, even if they oppose my views. I feel most uncomfortable around people that refuse to think, refuse to feel, refuse to question or risk depth.
However, back to the issue, “Love me for who I am!” It is possible to love others, but generally what we love is their soul, their spirit, and the rest is kind of superficial. They may like one football team and then move jobs and fall in love with another team. If we love only on the basis of common interests, we limit who and how we love.
This doesn’t mean that we have to like all the junk we see on the surface, like others’ religious views, political views, or tastes in music. Rather we must see past the superficial to a person of potential, someone who has within them the capability to be a beautiful person if they recognize what is important.
“Who am I?” Honestly, I once was trapped into thinking, “This is just me; I can’t change!” This is futile thinking, and absolutely wrong. Within every human being is a part of them that is beautiful, and in fact, potentially a reflection of God.
However, when life happens to us, we may have no idea what that is, how it works, or how we become what we always had the potential to be.
(I will end here, and if enough people are interested- I will go further)
More >
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1 Mar 2006 @ 17:24
Generally, more people fall in lust than in love. In fact, true love is hard to fall out of because it is selfless. Immature love is possessive and self-centered.
Is there such a thing as love at first sight? Not really. This doesn't mean two people don't guess well and find they connect with someone immediately. However, their love has to get far beyond "first sight attraction" to last.
There is chemistry at first sight and this is proven by countless imaging techniques. The pleasurable connection to someone attractive can be stronger than any drug, and an addictive drug.
When you look at love as a feeling or emotion, let's face it, some people are eye candy. Some are ear-candy. If you and they happen to reciprocate those feelings, then it's candy heaven for a time.
Then they open their mouths and utter an opinion, and you hear, "Well, I wouldn't toss them out of bed for being a -winger- " (right or left- you choose) In other words, they had an attraction and just realized they weren't as spot-on in agreement about life as they first thought. "Did I really love them, or was I mistaken? Oh dear! They not only have political views, but religious views, and they don't like Seinfeld! How can this last?"
The point is that we can fall emotionally chemically for someone, but at some point our initial chemical reaction will wax, and what cements the relationship after that is based on how we view that person.
When someone says they fell out of love, generally they didn't fall out of love, but out of chemical attraction. When the chemical responce begins to subside, what is there? Common beliefs? Common anything?
By this time, people begin to see what a person values, their attitudes, their quirks and flaws. In order to build a lasting relationship, people need to move toward intimacy, which has to do with sharing and caring.
Chemical attraction is great while it lasts, but it won't hold two people together forever. It may initiate two people coming together and getting to know each other, and if they have common interests, they may have that feeling they were always in love. But it wasn't the initial gut reaction, it was the fortunate happenstance of being attracted to someone they could get along with.
Most others fall in love after the fact. The chemistry wears off, the other person changes, they change; and for a moment wonder, "What in the world did I get into?"
At this point it takes people wanting to build a relationship to make a relationship. A greater love is possible, but having that Chemistry made everything beautiful like being on some drug-induced high. Heck, on Versed (??? What is that stuff they give you for surgery? Well, you love every doctor and nurse in the hospital, even the cold nasty ones)
Don't get me wrong, I like feeling good (natural highs)
But for love to grow, my will has to enter the mix, my compassion, my ability to look past flaws and at the bigger picture. And when the will is in the right place, often feelings follow. More >
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 28 Feb 2006 @ 22:52
The inhabitants of this world go about their business in ignorance, buying, selling, immersing themselves in a variety of of diversions. Yet, a battle rages on for the preservation of their race.
On the borders beyond the western wood a Seer awaits the coming of a monstrous race. His staff has burst into flames, and he will fight again on behalf of the human race.
The clock is ticking and enemy grows stronger. Unless the nations awaken to the threat, the world will be anhilated.
* Photo is property of N Marion Hage. It was taken by Susan Demko and Jim Jasterzinski. Photo Art and Costume by N Marion Hage. More >
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True love is more than a feeling, it's an act of the will. Feelings can be fleeting, and should be the tail in our decision making process, and never the head. In other words, if I don't feel like loving today, I should not avoid doing what love requires on that basis. If someone needs me, I must look at our relationship, and make an informed choice to sometimes show love when I least feel like it.
We understand that parents must be there for children, even when they anger us, or disappoint us. This same principle is true for all relationships. |
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If I waited to do the right thing until I was "moved" to do the right thing, most times, the right thing wouldn't get done. For this reason, we need a hierarchy of values and principles. For me, love is the highest value. If I pass someone in need, I may not feel particularly loving on that day. In fact, helping them may be an inconvenience, or worse. It may cost me. It's not what we do that we 'feel like doing', that often defines us, but what we do when we don't feel much like doing it. I can hug someone who makes me feel squishy with delight. It's hugging those I don't feel like hugging, because in my will, I do care, that defines me. If I care, but my feelings are disconnected, this doesn't make me insincere. It makes me realize that sometimes my feelings lag behind what I know to be right. Often, I have reached out to people that I didn't really feel warm feelings for. In fact, some were difficult and cold. However, I often was rewarded by seeing the light of life sparked in their eyes. Sometimes we are like a match that kindles a warm flame in a cold fireplace. They have the fuel, but need someone to light it. I have never regreted the risks of love, but have often regreted not taking the risk. Love the unlovely. Love the seemingly unloveable. I don't mean you should risk putting yourself before hostility. In that case, you might want to get a second or third opinion. But in most cases, we pass cold and distant people, and they seem as walking dead. Sometimes its simply because of fear and inner loneliness, and they are beaten down and afraid to open up. The risks of love pale in comparrison to the rewards. |
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