Your Reason for Living

 "To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence for God is love."  

~Thomas Merton

What's left with you?

 "Love is what's left in a relationship after all the selfishness has been removed."

~Cullen Hightower

Separated Reunited -or - Separate Fused?

 Have you ever heard of Paul Tillich's definition of love?

"LOVE IS THE ONTOLOGICAL DRIVE TOWARD THE REUNION OF THE SEPARATED."

page 30

To Love and Be Loved

Sam Keen

I had not.  What do you think?  Is it a bringing together of separated souls, or two souls coming together to forge a bond?

Interesting to ponder...

Giving + Receiving Love

 "When we say, "love is a gift," we are reminded that sometimes it is simply bestowed on us."

page 29

To Love and Be Loved

Sam Keen

Love is a gift to give and receive.  Make sure you do both!

Defining and Measuring Love - Poverty or Richness of Love

 "In the final analysis, we do not define or measure love but are defined and measured by it."

"It is the poverty or richness of our love that defines our sense of what is real."

page 28

To Love and Be Loved

Sam Keen

Unarmed truth + Unconditional love

 Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

"Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

Let it be so.  Let it be.  

The Ideal is LOVE - for all of us!

 "Love is the ideal of all of us"

~Robert Solomon, The Passions

Challenge: Be the more loving one

 W.H. Auden's poem

"If equal affection cannot be

     Let the more loving one be me."

Let this challenge us, to be the more loving one.

Let's have a competition to see who can be!

In Love - Paradox Rules - Mystery

 "In quantum physics

as in love,

in searching out

matter and meaning

paradox rules.

Protons, being particle and wave,

persons, being singe and connected,

arrive at their destination

before they embark on the journey.

The arrow of longing

hits the target

before we take aim.

The answer sleeps

in the question.

The lost treasure

is our found/ation.

Start with the conclusion,

the end encoded in the beginning.

The problem of the meaning of life

is solved in the mystery of love.

[poem in front of  "To Love and Be Loved" by Sam Keen

Perfectly Imperfect

 "We come to love - not by finding a perfect person, 

    but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."

 ~Sam Keen, To Love and Be Loved

Prescription: Never Grow Old

 "Those who love deeply never grow old;

they may die of old age, but they die young."

~Benjamin Franklin

Dying of old age - yet dying with youthfulness, O Lord... let me love deeply that renews me daily.

What is grander?

 Victor Hugo, seems to really "get" love.  Of his many quotes, I think this one hits the target:

"What a grand thing to be loved!

What a grander thing still, to love!"

Be grand!  Be grander still!  Love on!

Love = Reality

 I read that "love and love alone is the substance of reality."

Consider that for a moment:  The only real thing is love.  Everything else is subterfuge.  Everything else is meaningless, smoke, vapor, mist. 

The only thing that matters.

The only things that last.

The only thing that means anything.

Let that sink in.  Let that be your reality.

Love is the Reason, the Means, the End

 "Everything we do, we do for a reason, but only love is its own reason."

~St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Love is ground of Beauty

 "Love ... lays the ground of beauty.

There is nothing more beautiful than love, and 

everything beautiful is already love in a form hidden or revealed."

~Brother Paul Quenon

(p. 25, How Beauty Will Save the World" by Winfield Bevins

Love is the Lesson

 

"Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us."

    Richard Rohr says this on a devotion.  Ponder how "Love is the Lesson" and how God is teaching it.  

    How is He teaching you?  Where are you failing to learn the lesson, t

     hat LOVE IS THE GREATEST OF ALL. 

(CAC Daily Meditations, March 6, 2026)

How embracing is your love?

 

Love [people] even in [their] sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

 

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

 

What do I start with?

 "Love starts with an attitude, not a feeling."  

So said Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages.

Sometimes it's not the language, but the heart, the spirit, the attitude.

Help us remember.  We bring more than language, we speak a universal language of what we bring in the room and into relating.  

If I were sure I loved...

 C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, said - ask yourself,:

“If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?” When you have found the answer, go and do it."

Ponder that thought, and then go and do.