Ask yourself...

 Richard Rohr said:

"We are created out of love and we are made to energize the world in love."

What energy are you putting into the world?

It's a good question.

Do you love yourself?

 "You will never feel loved until you love yourself."

~Arnaud Desjardins

(quoted in Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships)

Melt...dissolve...let down your guard

 

Who is hard to love around you?

 "Those who are the hardest to love  need it the most."

~Socrates

Love = Life Life = Love

 "Life is love and love is life."

Indian sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj

EVERYTHING....

 "Everything has to do with loving and not loving."

~Rumi

A Good Question to Ask Yourself

 Jean Oelwang, in her book, Partnering, tells us what Jacqueline Novogratz's mother used to say to their family, "Am I loving enough?" ((page 42)

This is a great question to ask ourselves.  If the answer is no - we can do more.  If the answer is yes.  Then we should feel peace, that is all we can do.  Relief.  

A Truth Other Than Your Own

 "Love is a passionate search for a truth other than your own."

author Gregory David Roberts

(quoted in Partnering, Jean Oelwang, page 42)

Made for Loving

 "We are made for loving.  If we don't love, we will be like plants without water."

Archbishop Tutu

(quoted in Partnering by Jean Oelwang, page 22)

Unarmed love is the most powerful force in all the world

 Martin Luther King, Jr., in his book, STRENGTH TO LOVE...used a Pauline like style to write a letter to America.  He concludes his letter after admonishing America with love:

..."love is the most durable power in the world."

..."the highest good is love."

..."the greatest of all virtue is love."

..."you [may] have all knowledge, and you may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees; but, devoid of love, all of these mean absolutely nothing."

..."Without love, benevolence becomes egotism and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride."

..."You are challenged to follow the way of love.  You will then discover that unarmed love is the most powerful force in all the world."

(page 152, 153)

How much do you notice...see...know?

 "He who knows nothing, loves nothing.  He who can do nothing understands nothing.

He who understands nothing is worthless.  But he who understands also loves, notices, sees...

The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love...

Paracelsus

It's an activity - it's an active concern

 "Love is an activity; if I love, I am in constant state of active concern with the loved person..."

(page 118, The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm

It's an act of Faith

 "To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.  Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love."  

(page 118, The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm)

It's an Attitude

 Erich Fromm writes:

"Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person, it is an attitude, an orientation of character, which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one 'object' of love."

(page 5 of P.S. in his book, The Art of Loving, 2019 edition)

He also says,  " If to love means to have a loving attitude toward everybody, if love is a character trait, it must necessarily exist in one's relationship not only with one's family and friends, but toward those with whom one is in contact through one's work, business, profession."  

(page 119)

Love is not narcissistic

 "...the main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism.  

...the opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity, it is the faculty to see people and things as they are..."

(page 109, Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving)

It's communal

 "Love is our true destiny.  We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another."  Thomas Merton

(quoted by Bell Hooks in All About Love, page 223)

Love: NO MATTER

 "We are all mysteriously called to love no matter the conditions of our lives."

This is the call from Bell Hooks in  All About Love.  This is the call on each and every one of us:  No Matter the Conditions - or may I add circumstances of our lives.

(page 219)

Love as a Force

 "Love is the only force that allows us to hold one another close beyond the grave.  That is why knowing how to love each other is also a way of knowing how to die."

page 202

All About Love

Bell Hooks

 "Love empowers us to live fully and die well."

page 197

All About Love

Bell Hooks

Recognition - Acceptance

 The essence of true love is mutual recognition - two individuals seeing each other as they really are."

page 183

"Eric Butterworth writes:  "True love is a peculiar kind of insight through which we see the wholeness which the person is - at the same time totally accepting the level on which he now expresses himself - without any delusion that the potential is a present reality.  True love accepts the person who now is without qualifications, but with a sincere and unwavering commitment to help him to achieve his goals of self-unfoldment - which we may see better than he does."  

page 184

All About Love

Bell Hooks

Love is a decision, a judgment, a promise...

 "In The Art of Loving, [Erich] Fromm repeatedly talks about love as action, "essentially an act of will."  He writes:  "to love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.  If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever.  A feeling comes and it may go."  [Scott] Peck builds upon Fromm's definition when he describes love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, adding:  "The desire to love is not itself love.  Love is as love does.  Love is an act of will - namely, both an intention and action.  Will also implies choice.  We do not have to love.  We choose to love."  Despite these brilliant insights and the wise counsel they offer, most people remain reluctant to embrace the idea that it is more genuine, more real, to think of choosing to love rather than falling in love."

page 171,172

All About Love

Bell Hooks

The Eternal Principle: Love is All. Love is Everything. Love is our Destiny

 From Bell Hook's classic, All About Love, she writes:

"A commitment to spiritual life necessarily means we embrace the eternal principle that love is all, everything, our true destiny.  Despite overwhelming pressure to conform to the culture of lovelessness, we still seek to know love."

(page 77)

Love: Noun or Verb ~ Learned or Instinctive

 Bell Hooks in her book, All About Love, is attempting to define love and qualify whether it is a noun or a verb.  She says it well:

"M. Scott Peck's classic self-help book, The Road Less Traveled, first published in 1978...echoing the work of Erich Fromm, defines love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."  ...

"Love is as love does.  Love is an act of will - namely, both an intention and an action.  Will also implies voice.  We do not have to love.  We choose to love...this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually."

(page 4, 5)

Love as the Great Intangible

 Diane Ackerman said, "Love is the great intangible....Everyone agrees that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one can agree on what it is....that it can mean almost nothing or absolutely everything."  

(from her book A Natural History of Love, quoted in All About Love by Bell Hooks, p. 4)

Brené Brown's take on Love...

 Reading Brené Brown's book, Atlas of the Heart, she unpacks love with:

    "We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection,"

    "Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can be cultivated between two people only when it exists within each one of them - we can love others only as much as we love ourselves."

    "Shame, blame, disrepect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows.  Love can survive these injuries only if they're acknowledged, healed, and rare."

(page 185)

She concludes by saying, "We need more love between us, but also among us."  To that i say, Amen.