There's a lot of talk about love and hate these days; long, drawn out days when up is down and down is up; when super-moons are charged with fear of apocalypse sweeping the world. There's a lot of talk about love and hate, but amidst the slogans and jeers, there doesn't seem to be much revelation of what love actually is.
1. Love is patient: Love takes time--lots of it. It doesn't lose its cool, rush through things, talk fast and act faster. It takes talking and listening. It transcends slogans and headlines; it can't be communicated with emojis or tweets.
2. Love is kind: Kindness is a virtue of love. When we love, we are kind; and we are kind to what we love. Kindness is a way of being, a way of engaging the world around you.
3. Love isn't envious: When we are envious of another, we raise ourselves above them; we want them destroyed, moved out of the way, trampled under foot. When we are not envious, we are kind; we are able to let the other person be who they are; we are in fact happy of their accomplishments, knowing that when those around us are elevated, we are elevated with them.
4. Love is humble and selfless: When we boast, we boast about ourselves; and when we boast about ourselves, there's no room for anyone else. When we are proud, we are blind to the accomplishments and concerns of others. The other doesn't exist for us. But love isn't like that. Love is humble; it seeks out the lowest places, the places of need and hurt. Love is selfless: when one walks in love, one forgets one's needs, one's pain or hurt, and focuses on that of the other, on the object of love.
5. Love honours: We honour that which we love. When we have love, we even have a heart for the dishonoured, the outcast, the marginalized, the ones who fall through the cracks, the losers. When we have love, even those who deserve to be dishonoured are honoured, are elevated beyond what they deserve by grace and mercy. Justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve.
6. Love seeks the other: When we seek ourselves, we are in false love, the Narcissus kind of love, the selfie love, which isn't love at all, but pure ego. Ego looks after itself; but love looks after the other ahead of oneself.
7. Love seeks truth: In love, falsehood has no room to rule; you cannot be in love and live in falsehood. Love seeks the truth of every situation; and, when the truth is painful, love enters forgiveness and grace. Truth is light, falsehood darkness; and light always overcomes the darkness, even if the darkness doesn't comprehend it. Love and evil cannot co-exist, for love can only exist in that which is good, that which is supreme.
8. Love protects: In seeking what is ultimately good, love protects from evil. As that which seeks others, it is a protective force. As that which is selfless, love gives its life for others.
9. Love trusts: To love is to regain a childishness--full of trust. Love therefore isn't cynical or skeptical; it doesn't stand idly by when one is hurting; it doesn't hide behind slogans or cliches when truth is staring it in the face; the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. It gives everything--fully trusting, fully alive, fully clinging, fully hoping. It doesn't calculate from the mind, but lives fully from the heart.
10. Love doesn't give up: Love is perseverance--it endures. To love is to never give up, even when you think you can't go on. As a running coach once put it, the mind will try to give up before the body is ready to. When you have love, even when you want to give up, even when all around you are telling you to, you can't--you won't. Love is the call, the mandate, the way forward; love is the authentic way of being who you are.
11. Love never fails: Throw everything against love, and love will win every time. Who can defeat love? There isn't a force greater than it. It inspires, moves, pushes, draws in, envelopes, exposes, forgives, transforms, softens, brings peace, heals, encourages, tears down barriers, raises people up, embraces, and endures.
Amidst the slogans, the cliches, the headlines and hysteria is the call of love. You can't miss it. You are made for it, and it is made for you. May you see it and let it enter your heart--
then don't let it go...
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