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.

Sentiment or Commitment

 "Love not just a feeling - it's an action.

 Love is service.

...Loving others is more than just a sentiment; it's a commitment to serve, to uplift, and to act."

page 61,62

Anne Neilson

Christmas Angels

Compelled Love is no love at all

 "Real love is simply not possible without freedom of choice.

Compelled love is never love, and so the possibility of love entails the possibility of pain.

....For love to exist, freedom must exist."

Amy Orr-Ewing

Don't Chase, Invite!

 "Love is not something we chase; it is something we invite by creating space within ourselves and our lives..."...Openness becoming ready to receive and share love in its most authentic and transformative form."  

Aida Murad

page 205

in her beautiful book:  Life is a Miracle

...So you know you are loved...

 "You should pray and meditate every day, so you know that you are loved, so you feel the presence of God's love in your life.  This is the only way you can truly help others and serve the poorest of the poor.  

We have to give a full heart, one that is saturated with love, overflowing to others.

Before we can give freely, we have to know that we are loved.

This is why you should pray and meditate every day.

So you can remember you are loved, letting it fill your heart and your body.

Let it fill every cell of your being.

Then, give it all away."

Mother Teresa

What is visible when you work?

"Work is love made visible."

Kahlil Gibran

How do you harmonize the balance?

We harmonize and balance necessary self-care with a constant expansion beyond ourselves to loving others. This is brilliant! It’s both simple and elegant, showing us how to love our neighbor as our self. Imagining and working toward this harmony keeps us from seeking impossible, private, and heroic ideals. Now the possibility of love is potentially right in front of us and always concrete. Love is no longer a theory or a heroic ideal. Love is seeking the good of as many as possible.

                                    (from Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, 

                                                                from the Center for Action and Contemplation,                             

                                     5/27/2024)     

Are you waiting in love?

 "...prayer seems to be a matter of waiting in love.  Returning to love.  Trusting that love is the deepest stream of reality."  

Richard Rohr speaks so eloquently to the beauty of love.

This is from one of his devotions from today from his Center for Action and Contemplation.

A good working definition of Love

 "What do we mean by love? poses 19th Century founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist at Coxley, Oxford, Richard Meux Benson:

"It is love whereby we exist not for ourselves but for others.

It is love whereby we rejoice in contemplating others' perfections as truly as if they were our own.

It is love whereby we acknowledge our obligations to others and seek to make return for them for all the good we have received.

The heart must confess that there is a sense of unity involving the moral obligation of love which binds us to the whole human race...

They are the totality out of which we have emerged, and we perish in the void if we seek to live as individuals for ourselves alone."

(quoted in Meditating on the Word, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, page 18, 19)

A hunk, a hunk of burning love!

"Love is  a fire of transformation"... so says Ilia Delia.  The fire needs to be kept alive.  

 

Let it burn and purify.

 

 Let love do its work.

 

 Love will change you.  

Real Valentine's Day Love

 On Valentines Day - when she lost her husband, Carolyn Moor, writes almost a quarter of a century later about love:

"Love is activated when we witness beauty and truth in the world."

Thank you for reminding us we need to look for beauty and discover truth and love will follow.