Love
for Free
“...because
love is not just an idea. Love is something alive, living, personal,
and true. The creating and nourishing power within life, free to all,
and it is medicine and food.”
Anne
Lamott (Almost Everything: Notes on Hope, p. 154)
How would you define
love? For much of my life, the notion of love was tied to personal
relationships. My definition changed as I moved through the life
stages. When I was young, my concept of love had to do with
merging—body and soul—with the object of my passion. It was both
emotional and physical. In my early adulthood, love was all about
security in relationship. I felt loved and loving when someone else
was sharing the load. I wanted/needed a helpmate. In the middle
years, love became more about freedom. I wanted to feel secure, but I
also wanted room to breathe—space in which to grow. Love required
the allowance of that space by the one who loved me. As I've aged,
I've begun to understand that love is not tied to external
relationships, and that the most important aspect of it is not
“incoming love,” but “outgoing love.” I feel most alive and
secure when I am loving, rather than being loved—although being
loved is a great boon.
Love is a free-standing
entity—it exists without human intervention or creation. It doesn't
require a subject or an object. It sometimes flows through us, and
sometimes we block that flow. But, like air, it is always available.
It bubbles up from within—like the living water that Jesus talked
about in John, chapter 4—and it flourishes without, in the beauty
and generosity of creation. The world itself, with all its diversity
and complicated ecological balances, is an act of pure love. We can
receive it as such, and fall deeply into the lap of its embrace, or
we can exploit it for personal gain. Our choice will not diminish or
enhance the love available because it is not ours to give or take
away. Love is free. It is a gift of grace.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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