Relational Generosity

Sarah Bainbridge has written some very good pieces on relational generosity on the Living Generously web site. Beginning with Love Me, and continuing with Love Life, Loving Well and Forgiveness, she conveys deep and relevant insights. Check them out.

Love with Quotation Marks

If I write

I "love" you.

what am I saying?
It's not the same as saying

I love you.

Is it?

Kierkegaard's Deep Hidden Spring of Love

Love’s hidden life is in the innermost being, unfathomable, and then in turn is in an unfathomable connectedness with all existence. Just as the quiet lake originates deep down in hidden springs no eye has seen, so also does a person’s love originate even more deeply in God’s love. If there were no gushing spring at the bottom, if God were not love, then there would be neither the little lake nor a human being’s love. Just as the quiet lake originates darkly in the deep spring, so a human being’s love originates mysteriously in God’s love.

Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. pp 9, 10.

Traherne's True Love

True Love as it intendeth the greatest gifts intendeth also the greatest benefits. It contenteth not itself in showing great things unless it can make them greatly useful. For Love greatly delighteth in seeing its object continually seated in the highest happiness. Unless therefore I could advance you higher by the uses of what I give, my Love could not be satisfied in giving you the whole world. But because when you enjoy it you are advanced to the Throne of God and may see His Love; I rest well pleased in bestowing it. It will make you to see your own greatness, the truth of the Scriptures, the amiableness of Virtue, and the beauty of Religion. It will enable you to contemn the world, and to overflow with praises.

Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations, Book I, Number 6.

Anyone Can Love Anyone

Addendum to True Statements About Love:
Anyone can love anyone.
(Don't ask me how I know. Just live with it a while and you will know.)

True Statements About Love

Some statements about love which I think are true:

(Not necessarily in order of importance)

• Love is not a feeling, but love has feelings.
  • A person who loves often feels the feelings of the person he or she loves, although they might not be recognizable as such.
• You cannot love if you reject the love of others.
  • You cannot love yourself or others if you reject the love of others or yourself.
• You cannot love other people if you do not love God.
  • You cannot love God if you don’t think He loves you.
  • You cannot love others if God doesn’t love you.
• Love says, it’s good that you exist.
  • Love says, it’s good that I exist.
• Love comes from God.
• God is love.
• God loves you.
• A person who loves should believe there is love in the heart of the loved one.
• We cannot live without love.
  • We want and need to be loved.
  • We want to be loved, in particular, by the people we love.
• We cannot make anyone (or everyone) love us.
• Love is a commandment of God.
• When someone loves us we tend to feel ashamed.
  • When we are ashamed we often do things that don’t look like love.
• Love is often hidden under other things like self-righteousness and fear. When we clear away those things the love remains and appears.
• Love moves toward people. [Paul Miller]
  • Love doesn’t leave people alone. [Miller]

Here is something else I have been thinking about that is worth exploring:

Love is like light. As per theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, it has properties of a wave and a particle.