About a year ago, a friend asked me to define the word love.
I’d just finished a short presentation about a book I wrote called Come Home. A discussion followed. I confessed that the book’s title landed when I understood what the book taught me: as I wrote about practices and insight to encourage comfort in ourselves, I realized that I was simply writing about love. (Grab the book and read page 7.)
I told my friend that love is that fullness of attention that consumes us in acceptance. It can feel mystical or mundane but it’s always earnest.
Earlier today, a walk along the waterfront inspired me to return to the question. I observed trash at the bay’s edge, heard a man curse at a stranger, listened to a pitch of disrespect become a rally of disrespect. I thought to myself: love is in order. I observed the trash mingling in the breakwater rocks— cans, masks, chip bags, socks. I observed people taking walks, sharing stories and making connections. I watched a woman make her friends laugh.
Love is our life’s journey and destination. Love is home itself; our willingness to be with it becomes our adventure and arrival.
When I hear the words, ‘come home’, I feel, at once, blessed with invitation and welcome. I belong, perfectly, yet I see the threads of me still loose or knotted, waiting to be braided into belonging. I yearn with a whole heart to reconcile these unkempt aspects. This reconciliation is the journey. And home.
Let’s say I carry disappointment for the difficulties of childhood. Or I’m envious of a certain status. How about I feel diminished by poor health. Or I was cruel once and I carry that ugliness in a tightly bound tangle of self-doubt or recrimination. Maybe I resent politics or history or economics or someone and my anger overwhelms me.
This mess of beautiful threads awaits my honest attention. Loose threads will trip me up. Knots hold me back. The gnarliest gnarls keep me stuck and hurting. I want relief from them. But I’ve learned— again and again— that my rejection of them doesn’t relieve me. I can’t simply walk away and expect them not to trail behind me… like a terribly embroidered bridal gown.
There is no reconciliation without allowing for the existence of the unreconciled.
These wayward threads tell stories of my confusion and dissatisfaction. Maybe also pain. Maybe also guilt. If I pretend they don’t matter, I won’t find peace with them. If I hate them, they’ll come for me. If I wage war with them, I give them the power to fight back.
If I choose, instead, to sincerely see them, just as they are, I see myself too. I see how these parts of me came loose or became entangled. I see how they separate me from belonging. I empathize with my old capabilities and realize my evolution. These untended threads are old safety nets. And here I am, only scathed by my unwillingness to acknowledge and congratulate my survival.
Thank you is always the prayer.
And a good thank you always needs a reason. I’m grateful because these threads of old saved me. I’m grateful because frayed threads can be woven into understanding and compassion. They will save me again as I realize every fault is a bit of perfection waiting patiently for me.
So, how shall we love? Perhaps we make an earnest effort to see with whole hearts. We take a breath and accept what’s before us to learn how we might be better with it. We yearn to serve life.
Along the way, there will be faults. If we keep our hearts open, they will be reconciled in perfect moments.
(PS: After observing the trash in the bay, I picked up a few pieces I could reach and placed them in a bin. The rocks glowed just a little brighter in the morning sun.)
I love you.
Please share your definition of love in the comments or share this definition of love with a friend who might like to read it! Thank you for being you.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. I can't come close to the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
We note we can MEASURE our love, see if we're doing it.
These words, 'patient, kind' can be looked up in the interline Greek
for more comprehensive meanings.
I want to be 'earnest' but am I earnest about the 'right things'?
I want to be 'earnest' but do I even have the focus?
Or do the negatives muddy this up?
Earnest involves 'a pledge'. Am I up for that?
But I am up to striving to 'do' love.
Beautiful!! Thank you. I believe love is opening your hear to things unseen