Lovely Lotus Flowers
Have you ever contemplated the nature of the love you’re giving? Is it through words or deeds? Is it your presence or gifts? Is it sweet and enduring? Or is it hot and fleeting. Is it unconditional or does it come with attachments and expectations? Is it reserved for people who meet a certain set of standards or is it freely given, even to the “stinky people” as Mathew Ferry calls them. The people who cross our path who somehow just bug us.
It’s an interesting thing to ponder and examine in ones relationships. Since what we give is the attractive force for what we get, the way we love is really establishing how we are loved. Loving is not so easy as I’d like it to be. Some days, I can’t seem to find my compassion. Not even for me. Isn’t it interesting that on those days, not much compassion comes my way. Other times, it comes flooding in to remind me of how I should be behaving. Grace that comes to help me Be more of who I intend.
The nature of love is so far beyond comprehension. Sometimes it just happens, and other times, all the willing in the world can’t seem to make it so. Confounding. Some wise person once said something like ‘the joy in life doesn’t come from having what you want, but rather from wanting what you have.’ So it seems that in the act of the choosing, we open ourselves to a very different experience of what is ours. The choice to love is the same. Choosing it even when it feels like the last thing we’d choose makes it all the more sweet.
I’m learning I’ve made the loving I’m doing too complicated and too conditional. It’s really not difficult at all, and it requires much less thinking than I give it. It’s just a simple choice to Be that. Just Be love. Another wise person once said that every act is either an act of love or a request for love. So next time you are challenged to love…when someone does the unspeakable or unthinkable…like cut you off in traffic, or not pay you back money they owe you, or tell one of your secrets, or show up late or not at all, or forget your birthday, or leave you after you’ve given your heart to them, or any number of other seemingly unloving and unlovable trespasses. You will be confronted with the choice. Ask yourself “What would love do in this moment?” “How would I be if I were being love in this moment? “
The options that come to you may surprise you. They often do me. I won’t promise it will be easy. In fact, sometimes choosing love is harder than any other option on the table. But it is always the most fulfilling. As is summed up in this quote by an unknown author: “Love is like the sun coming out of the clouds and warming your soul.”
Wishing you love in full measure this day and always.
About Valerie Sheppard
