A Warrior's Spirit

"You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment.
The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability; but absolute vulnerability --
to the world, to life, and to the presence you felt.  All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love.
Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death."

Dan Millman
Way of the Peaceful Warrior

"Don't wait until you die to learn the warrior's way.  Do it now, each night, before you drift off to sleep.  As you review your day, consider these 2 questions of courage and love.  Learn from each day, so that each day you can show a little more courage and a little more love."
Dan Millman
No Ordinary Moments

Maya Angelou describes Love

True Trinity Loving

"The Father's love is our source (I John 3:1).
Jesus is our model (John 15:13).
The Holy Spirit makes it real (Romans 5:5)."

Sylvia Gunter
page 11
For the Family

Today: It's all we have

Today.

What can you do to show someone love?

How can you help someone?

Is there a way you can serve, humbly?

Do you know anyone that needs something?

Can you be a blessing to someone, today?

Loving = Freedom/Freedom = Loving

In reading Eugene Peterson's classic, The Message, interpreting Galatians 5:13 and 14, he says:

"It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life.  Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom.  Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows.  For everything we know about God's Word is summed up in a single sentence:  Love others as you love yourself.  That's an act of true freedom."

Where are your thoughts?

In reading Walter Hilton's classic book from the 14th Century, Toward a Perfect Love,  he says:

"Man, is naught else but his thoughts and his loves."

This thought is attributed to St. Augustine (from the 4th Century) teaching:  "If we want to know what a person is, we have simply to ask what it is he loves, and how he loves it."

The editor/translator applies this by saying:  "If you really want to know what it is you love, consider what it is you are most thinking about.  For where your love is, there your eye will be turned, your pleasure found, and your heart preoccupied."

(Introduction, p. xxv)

Wrap yourself in Love

"Love is the fabric that enfolds the body and provides warmth and comfort.  This blanket of love protects against the coldness of the world and insulates from the blustery winds of hate.  Its fabric is soft yet strong, and there is great beauty in its many colors and intricate patterns.  It is meant to be shared, for in the sharing it covers sin and envelops all who want to know the blessings that it alone can give.

This covering of love is large enough to include all who desire its consolation yet small enough to accommodate each one personally and abundantly.  To be enfolded in this blanket is to experience acceptance and healing.  It neither binds nor constricts, and amazingly permits those encompassed within its folds to move into freedom.

This blanket of love cannot be bought, but it is freely bestowed by the heavenly Weaver and its durability has stood the test of the ages.  It is the one and only blanket that is needed for life.  Without it the soul will grow cold and hard, and all that is accomplished will ultimately profit nothing.  With it the souls will experience the intensity and tenderness of God's love and will ultimately be filled with the fullness of God.  This love is the greatest of all virtues:  it is transforming; it is powerful; and it never fails."

page 99
Cynthia Heald
Becoming a Woman Who Loves

"Civilization of Love"

When I first saw the phrase, "civilization of love," I was struck:  What a great thought of community.
I discovered this phrase was first used by Pope Paul VI in 1970.  Pope John Paul II adopted this phrase and used it prolifically, in over 200 papal documents.

What we need is a culture of love, or more aptly put, a "civilization of love."  Perhaps if we had more love, we would be more civilized.  Or, maybe if we were more civilized, we would act with more love.  Either way is great by me.  

http://www.civilizationoflove.net/Papal_List.htm

Love & Forgiveness

"God cannot love us unless He forgives us and cannot forgive us without  a commitment to love us.
Love and forgiveness are equally bound together in all human relationships.
I cannot hope to ever love someone unless I am committed to forgive him.
I cannot hope to ever forgive him - that is, truly forgive him - unless I know the rich, incomprehensible joy of being forgiven."

Dan Allender
Bold Love
page 42