🎜LOVE is what makes the world go round. 🎝
🎜All we need is LOVE. 🎝
🎜What the world needs now is LOVE sweet LOVE. 🎝
Songs from the ages exalt LOVE. But what is LOVE?
When many people hear the word “LOVE”, they automatically think of the romantic kind of LOVE. The LOVE that one has with a spouse or partner. Passionate LOVE. Abiding LOVE that moves with us through the years as we age. LOVE that depends on the other.
With all the Disney films for children, a spell is broken by “the kiss of one’s true LOVE.” In these movies the prince comes along and lays eyes on the beautiful princess and gives her a kiss. Poof! Spell broken
With the Pixar movies, Brave, that began to change…the spell was broken by the daughter with her true LOVE for her mother and in Frozen with the true LOVE of a sister.
Familial LOVE is another form of LOVE that we recognize as well. Deep abiding LOVE we feel for the members of our family…that feeling of warmth and attachment I have when I just think of our children.
LOVE with one’s friends. I will light up when I see our wonderful friends. We have so many dear, precious friends that my LOVE for each of them is as deep as familial LOVE. All of these types of LOVE, give us warmth in a cruel world, and fuzzy feelings of acceptance and joy.
But there is a different LOVE that may be most important of all…the LOVE we share with everyone whether we like them or not. The word LOVE in English can mean an emotional state but it also means action. The LOVE we act on.
We were doing a slide presentation at North Anderson Community Church (Presbyterian) back in the day when we ran shelters in North Carolina. A member came up to me and said, “The way that you LOVE those people is admirable.”
Trying to be honest, I replied, “I’m sorry but I don’t LOVE many of these people.”
She then said one of the most important sentences I have ever heard, “LOVE is a verb: you show your LOVE by caring for them physically and emotionally.”
Maybe it was because I was getting the flu or maybe because we then saw the movie, Gandhi, I don’t know but that sentence has stuck with me.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “The real LOVE is to LOVE them that hate you, to LOVE your neighbor even though you distrust [them].”
True LOVE often comes with no warmth or fuzzy feelings of acceptance or joy, but instead true LOVE often comes in the face of hate and malice.
LOVE is action…what we do to and for others.
Cornell West, an American philosopher and social activist, said, “Never forget that justice is what LOVE looks like in public.”
If we believe in the Divine of LOVE…the God of LOVE…we have no other choice, but to LOVE…
“You cannot LOVE God whom you have not seen, if you hate your neighbor whom you have seen.” (1 John 4:22b)
“LOVE your enemies, pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus told his disciples. (Matt 5:44)
Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “LOVE is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
“Nothing is impossible for pure LOVE,” Gandhi said…and he would know. He held a LOVE-filled revolution and the British left India.
LOVE…a force that is powerful and right.
“LOVE your enemies, pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus told his disciples. (Matt 5:44)
Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “LOVE is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
“Nothing is impossible for pure LOVE,” Gandhi said…and he would know. He held a LOVE-filled revolution and the British left India.
LOVE…a force that is powerful and right.
What the world needs now is indeed LOVE…true LOVE.
Neighbor to neighbor. Community to community. Nation to nation. All LOVING each other. All taking actions of LOVE.
-Kathleen
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