Saturday, May 08, 2004

The Many Faces of Love

Love comes in many flavors, functions and forms.
Love has a multitude of faces and phases.
Love seems to be most often described and yet is beyond description.
Love is inconstant and yet, the one Eternal Truth in the Universe.
How can this be?

Love can be threatening and demanding.
Love can be punitive and critical.
Love can be duty-bound and obligatory.
Love can be pretentious and jealous.
Love can be strong and blatant or meek and mild.
Love can cling and hang on for dear life.
Love can let go and seem to not care.
Love can be daring and bold or surrendered and letting go.
Love can say “Yes” and Love can say ”No”.
Love can create dependency and do everything for you.
Love can foster independence and make you do for yourself.
Love can be angry and confrontational.
Love can be forgiving and kind.
Love can be gentle as a mother’s caress or tough as a coach’s demands.
Love can be expressing both fears and tears.
Love often shares joy and laughter.

How can it be that love in our culture shows up so many ways?
We learn to love by how we are imprinted with Love.
When we know our “loving” parents, we believe their way is love’s way.
When we hear other’s tell us they “love” us, we often buy their way of loving.
When we see the movies and read the books of lasting love and “happily ever after”, we imagine Love.
If we come to relationship with a “loving” God, we believe what the stories tell us of His Love.
So what is Love? What is the True Love of a mother for a child?
What is the lasting love of one person for another?
What is the Love of two friends, two lovers, to people who are committed to Love?

As we grow through life’s experiences, we begin to shape our own values and truths about Love.
Our Loving becomes a product of our present choice rather than our past imprinting and experiences.
We cannot be surprised with the variety of expressions of Love, because we all are in different phases of learning to Love, to choose Love, to become Love, to be Love.
Perhaps Love is truly letting go of everything that is no Love.
Perhaps Love is learning to trust and be free.
Perhaps Love is a gift of conscious will for the best for All.
Perhaps Love is a willingness to Love ourselves as we want to be loved.
Perhaps Love is an openness to loving others as we have learned to love ourselves.
Perhaps we are all simply students of Love, learning to Love by letting go of the blocks to loving. Perhaps we are all forgiving what is false and reclaiming what is Real, the Love within, the Love We Are.
Perhaps Love is the reason we came, the reason we relate, the reason we Live and Give.

I am Loving YOU,
Betty Lue