(image from stock.xchng)February is the month for lovers. It is now, anyway. Once upon a time, there was no name for the 2 months of winter, that we know as January and February, as the civilized world based their entire reality on the growing season, which had nothing going on in the 2 dark winter months.
Much has been written about love. Most of us experience numerous kinds of love in our lifetimes. Parental love, romantic love, platonic love, spiritual love. We celebrate it, we mourn it's passing or it's loss. We extol it's virtues, we despise it's power over us. We all want it, we all need it. Marketers get rich on it. It's as varied an experience as you'll find anywhere in anything. And love itself-- that comforting, protective pleasure--has as many definitions as you can imagine. One I like especially is: ..."unselfish concern that freely accepts another in loyalty and seeks his good." First Corinthians 13 , read at weddings and often the text for sermons, has won the hearts of people across the world as the best definition of "love" ever penned. It goes like this:
"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (NLT)
In the middle of this month we celebrate Valentine's Day, a day acknowledging and honoring love and lovers, and named after a guy and a massacre. We buy massive amounts of chocolate and jewelery and Hallmark cards. We laugh, we play, we go out to dinner. Or conversely, we brood or we stay in bed with the covers over our heads, waiting for it to be over. We tremble with the idea that we are not loved, not loveable and will die old and alone...suffering through holidays like this for the rest of our miserable lives.
Peter Ustinov said " Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."
"Hatred paralyzes life, love releases it. Hatred confuses life, Love releases it. Hatred darkens life, Love illumines it." Martin Luther King, Jr. (Strength to Love, 1963)
Finally, a Yiddish Proverb says "Love is sweet, but tastes best with bread."
Love and blessings!
Namaste.
5 comments:
Here is an interesting fact. Not only do we celebrate Valentines Day, but tghe Chinese New Year is on the same day. Two reason to express love on the 14th!
And Love and Blessings to you Dear One.
Emily Dickinson said of love,
"That love is all there is
Is all we know of Love." And it's true, Love is born anew in my heart every day! Thanks for the wonderful post, Akannie!
I love it.
Go with peace and love.
Dianne
In an email I sent my daughter this week, I casually said I love myself now. Most of my emails are not answered, she emails a long one to me about once a month. Busy moms are like that. But it blew me away how happy she was to hear me say that. I thought about it and after all the recovery the past three years, and the therapy the past fifteen months, I am happy with me. So love has taken on a deeper meaning as I learn that I do love myself. See, my comment is me, me, me. Smile.
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