Love

Love might be one of the most overused words in the English language as well as the most misunderstood.  It can span the scale from 0 to 10 in actual meaning.  One might say I love pizza, and then there is waiting for that special someone to say those three words, “I love you.”

It can be centered on giving or receiving.  It can be needy.  It can be conditional or unconditional.  It can be bought.  It can be true.  It can be deep.  It can be shallow.  It can even be a tennis score.  In writing this I am reminded of one of George Carlin’s monologues.

The meaning of this four-letter word can be so broad that one can question if it even has meaning at all?  This one single word really encompasses too much and I feel it needs an offshoot of words with its own dictionary.

The Greeks had four words for love:

Agape – In Modern Greek it means brotherly love.  In more ancient times it referred to a true, deep, or sacrificial love.  It can also be referred to as a divine love or God’s love.  It can mean the highest and purest form of love.

Eros – This type of love is sensual and passionate, although it may not necessarily be sexual.  Nevertheless, it is more intimate in nature.  Its name is taken from the Greek god Eros, from whence the word erotic comes.  Cupid is another form of the god’s name, generally depicted as the second Eros, or his son.

It can refer to beauty or an appreciation of beauty such as physical attraction, but is not necessary in this type of love.  Plato used the term platonic to refer to love without physical attraction.  Platonic love is a love on a deeper level – the level of the soul and delves into the spiritual aspect.

Philia – Philia means friendship in Modern Greek. This love is virtuous and involves loyalty to friends, family and community, a concept developed by Aristotle.

Storge – Storge means “affection” in ancient and Modern Greek. It is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring. Rarely used in ancient works, and then almost exclusively as a descriptor of relationships within the family.

Yoga, meaning to yoke to God, is varied and broad in its many branches and definitely takes in the meaning of love. Under the ancient Indian tradition of yoga, Bhakti yoga is based on the doctrine that love is God and God is love.  All else is meaningless.  Earthly attachments with their lower forms of love are meaningless.  Bhakti yoga is the most direct method to experience the divine.  In perfection of this yoga all becomes one, knower and known, subject and object, deity and devotee.

“Giving love to all, 
feeling the love of God, 
seeing His presence in everyone…  that is the way to live in this world.”  Parahamansa Yogananda

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu

1 Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter of the Bible.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 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.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I believe that love is God’s glue, and actually is and is not separate from God.  It is that which holds all that is together.  It is the bliss and joy that mystics have experienced and that cannot be described in mere words.  Perhaps the closest earthly experience we may have of it is of “being in love.”  It’s an experience that usually fades and is not considered the norm.  I really think that “being in love” feeling should be the constant and the norm – a continuous ecstasy of spirit.  The poetry of Rumi to me most exemplifies this.  Rumi could be quoted all day on love, but I will end with this:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  Jalal ad-Din Rumi

I am thankful for the brief encounters I’ve had with that blissful love one would term Bhakti.

 

Some Valentine Red Before February Is Over

We are currently planning something for our upcoming tenth marriage anniversary.  It’s as hard to believe that ten years have flown by as quickly as this month as flown by.  Here are fourteen pictures in red representing some aspects of our lives together.  Needless to say, I’m thankful for our life together.

 

Signs of Love Abound

I’m all about synchronicity.  Especially after reading the Celestine Prophecy series I tend to look for signs everywhere.  If I see a bird or animal I will look up their meaning.  I also tend to discard as much as possible any bad omens, unless I have a strong feeling.  In my view, life is better with rosy colored glasses.

Yesterday morning I fixed some toast for breakfast and randomly tore off a piece of paper towel to use as a napkin.   We are conservative on paper towels as a part of our recycling process.  Anyway, I didn’t even notice what was on the towel that I placed by my plate until I sat down.  I saw Love squarely staring me in the face.  Whereas, some might say just coincidence, I say another message from divinity coming through.  I immediately grabbed the camera thinking of writing about this synchronicity.  Love, after all, is really the only message.

I’m thankful for such messages.  One of my favorite quotes by Rumi is, “Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.”  Another is, “Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes.”  I am constantly in awe of such synchronicity.

What I’m about to relate happened just a little over a week ago.  Some dear friends lost their son, and we were attending the funeral.  Even though it was so sad, there was a moment during the beginning of the funeral during group chanting that I felt a sense of bliss and love hovering over.  I wasn’t a part of the chanting.  I didn’t even understand the words.  However, there was a strong feeling of love and bliss.  I just felt this to be his presence in saying he was in such a place or state of divine love.

Even though I follow my heart, my intellect always says give me a further sign, just like in the sock story I posted earlier.  After leaving the funeral I checked my phone, and there had been two calls from the father’s cell phone during that time of the funeral.  Thinking, how strange, I immediately showed my husband.  One was just a missed call.  The other happened a few minutes later, a voice mail, which consisted of four minutes of the chanting that occurred during that time of the funeral.  The father saw the calls were made from his phone during the funeral.  The whole incident seemed to give them a tad more comfort in such a sad time.  I realize it can be explained away as pocket calls, but still I see the awe and bewilderment of the why of those calls, at that time, during that particular feeling, to me.  Although, still bewildered I choose to see it as a sign of divine love.

 

Valentine’s Day Equals Promotion Day

Yesterday was my day out.  Today I just wanted to stay in.  I had no definite plans for dinner but wanted to fix something special.  Along with something special comes a clean house for my husband to walk into and a candlelit dinner.  The candles were a gift to us from a dear friend.

The contemplation of what to fix began formulating piece by piece as the day progressed.  The meal would be basically vegan.  The centerpiece of the meal was to be a lentil dhal burger.  I had fresh spinach and strawberries.  I could do something artistic on the plate with those items.  I made my first creamy poppy seed dressing.  It turned out great.  I had beets.  Beet chips, along with the strawberries, for the color red to adorn the plate sounded like a good idea as well as nutritional.  To top it off we had dark chocolate truffles.  And almost every item including all the ingredients on the menu was organic.

A grand day in seemed appropriate with my husband’s new promotion.  The card on the table this morning announced that after a decade he had moved up from being the happiest and luckiest man in the world to the happiest and luckiest man in the universe.  The task seems to get bigger every year.  Now, I must work on all those parallel universes as well.

Actually, I’m really thankful he is so easy to please.

For Valentine Month – Thy Will Be Done & How I Met Superman

The Wedding Dinner

I was listening to an interview with Debbie Ford. In it she said if you only pray one prayer, pray, “Thy will be done.” I totally agree with that. God can dream much better things for us than we can ourselves even imagine.

So many people are looking for their soul mate. I have a somewhat different take on soul mates. I believe that soul mates are our teachers; therefore, they can be anyone we come in contact with, even for a brief time. Sometimes what we need to be taught is not that pleasant for us. I definitely see my first husband as my soul mate. I may have flunked that lesson. It takes two to make a relationship. This applies to any relationship – not just that of spouses. I often hear people putting all the blame on this one or that one. We all play the victim at times and the victimizer, the controller and the controlled. It’s our dual nature until we learn better. I have learned that in any troubled relationships that I may have that I am the one common denominator in them all.  A twin soul on the other hand is someone you are really in sink with and are ready to take that next spiritual step with.

This is about the day I prayed, “Thy will be done.” what led up to it and what followed. This prayer is often prayed after we’ve exhausted all other means of trying to manipulate life the way we think it should be.

I was acquainted with a wonderful woman and her daughter. I had known them for a few years, and found we had so much in common. I especially shared a lot of interests with the mother. We thought much in the same way, liked reading the same kinds of books, etc. I didn’t know the rest of the family, but through more and more contact with her met one of her sons. We had both been single for a couple of years. We began to date. I found I didn’t have as much in common with him; but still I was calculating my plans for becoming a member of this family. Losing my mother about five years earlier played a role, and I think I was looking for a substitute.

I loved spending time with the mother and daughter, but the son wasn’t exactly drooling over me as planned. I was still, you might say, “settling” for this relationship, thinking well you can’t really have it all. My daydreams about finding that perfect man said otherwise though.

The course of this entire relationship was less than two months. He did take me out for dinner at a nice restaurant and point blank asked me what kind of man I wanted. I used my daydreams as a reference and bolted out, “Superman, I want Superman.”

Shortly, thereafter, I had a business trip planned and was fretting over the care of my dog. He offered to come over and feed her. I was so relieved. Upon returning home I found my dog half starved. It takes a lot to make me mad, but this did it. With the utmost determination I started thinking I don’t deserve this and began praying. I basically said, “God, I’m tired of being single. You know the kind of man that would be best for me. You pick him.”

A couple of days passed. I sort of forgot about the prayer. I started looking on line using the keyword art and found Chris’s picture and bio. It sounded like we had a lot in common. I wrote about three lines of email to him to which he responded with a rather lengthy one. He started calling, and within a week drove the two and one half hours that it took to meet me. He said he knew he wanted to marry me the minute I came to the door. It took me a full day. Our first date was a five-mile hike. Now we celebrate our first date anniversary with a hiking trip.

I hadn’t had any more contact with the one who didn’t feed my dog until one day he just showed up asking me what had happened and why I hadn’t shown up at his family’s for Thanksgiving. I replied, “Do you remember when you asked me what kind of man I wanted?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Well he flew in.”

He also met someone, getting married about the same time Chris and I did. All is well with his mother and sister. We are still great friends, as they are also with Chris. I also married into a great family, as all of Chris’s family have heartily embraced me as their own.

In my phone notebook you will find Chris’s office number under Superman. It’s been almost ten years now, and I’ve had no reason to change it.

I’m thankful that Chris taught me that when you have to be gone from the house for any length of time you just leave a giant bag of dog food out.  Duh?  But, in the grander theme of things I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time.

 

A Valentine to My Husband

I think of all the subjects there are specific to the month of February.  For the shortest month, there really is a great deal to write about.  There is Black History Month.  That is particularly relevant to me considering for the past several years I have been researching and writing about the life of Sally Ann Barnes, a lady I met at age 8.  She had been born into slavery in 1858.  There is Lincoln’s birthday.  Last year my husband and I worked on a project for Lincoln’s Bicentennial celebration.  Then there is Valentine’s Day.  The subject of love is for any month.  Tonight I created a valentine to my husband.  Needless to say I’m very thankful we are together.  To Chris, Love, Jerri

Practicing Non-Religion

Gandhi

If God is love in all religions, then isn’t what really matters love?  Love connects us.  Religion when not practiced with love divides and conquers us. Why do we look for differences instead of similarities?  Why does it matter if someone is black or white, American or Indian, rich or poor, Catholic or Muslim?  If one is a Christian, what does it matter if someone is Baptist or Methodist?  Why do we continually practice division instead of love?

It is my belief that all the plans of division we devise separate us from God.  Love connects us to each other and to God.  When we see someone practicing devotion, the path of love, such as Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Rumi, do we see their religion, or do we see the path they have taken – the path of love?

Love is actually the easiest path in my opinion.  It requires no great intellect or wisdom, no resistance or strain, no analyzing or judging.  It firmly places us in the now as opposed to the past or future.   At the same time it provides the greatest benefit to our whole being – soul, body, and mind.

Sometimes I think God just dropped, we the children off, on this playground called Earth, and said play your little games but be good to each other and above all love each other.

I still see a lot of violence in both thought and deed in the world.  I also see a lot of humans coming to together showing compassion towards each other while celebrating both individuality and sameness and am thankful for that.

 

A Moment in Time

I’ve always been fascinated with anything relating to time travel, and I’m a hopeless romantic.  Therefore, it is only natural that my favorite movie is “Somewhere in Time.”  One of the pivotal moments in the movie is when the picture of Elise is taken.  It was the essence of being in love captured on film.

I always longed for that moment myself – that perfect picture.  There is a picture I use as my signature picture (the one I use as my image on the right hand side of this blog) which was taken two years ago by my husband, my Christopher Reeve, my Superman.  A new friend commented on the picture, and because of that it dawned on me that this was my “moment in time” picture – my Elise picture.

I was 55 at the time the picture was taken.  Being in love is timeless, and I’m thankful for that.