Love is …
“Love is the energy “that moves the sun, the moon and the other stars.” (Dante)
“Love” has almost become a four letter word. One side sneers at the sentimentality of it all, the other maintains that love is a form of permissiveness. Even conservative Christians are falling out of love with the word love, believing that it is applied far too widely.
Dante, writer of the Divine Comedy, certainly did not know of Einstein and quantum physics, but he still recognized love as an energy, a dynamic “substance” that moves the world. In the Bible, Paul quotes Greek philosophers: “In [God] we live and move and have our being, another recognition of the dynamic that sustains and flows through all that exists.”
Behind our windows that don’t open, in our air-conditioned offices, in front of our computer screens, the world feels very materialist and solid. In my great fortune, my laptop overlooks our gardens and labyrinth, bursting with spring greens and yellows, birds flitting about, and occasional wildlife (deer, ducks, wild turkey!, and woodchucks-far more frequently than occasional) “walking” the labyrinth. I just happened to glance up and see the rose-breasted grosbeak which spends one day a year in our yard on the journey north. With the sunlight pulling the plants taller and taller by the hour, it is not hard to sense that love is truly the energy that maintains all the rhythms of life.
All of the great religions recognize love as the greatest power on earth and the depths of spirituality, from which religions arise, are grounded in the sense of love. So easily, however, we dismiss love as not strong enough to overcome hate, to invigorate a love detoured by trauma and submerged in violence, addiction, and poverty. And the business world often echoes Tina Turner’s sentiment, “What’s love got to do with it, do with it?”
But love is what Life Listening Resources and Project Empower is all about. Someone said it sounds like a lot of b—s—. But we experience the changes in lives and relationships, whether it be in the work setting, school, marriage and family, or in the lives of those recovering from trauma, addiction, violence (given and received) and poverty.
I know a lot about love but more and more I am recognizing that much of the love I have given has been of an anxious nature. That doesn’t work nearly as well-and sometimes not at all. I am learning that love is a kind of “giving up”-letting go of the need for my desired outcome, and the willingness to hold someone in compassion without resentment even when they choose differently than I would have chosen for them. As I let go of my anxious love-otherwise known as co-dependency-my professional and personal relationships are changing.
So, I invite you to see the world through the eyes of love and ask for the gift and grace to see the love emanating out from the world around you.
Changing the world, one [woman] at a time, by changing the energy within, between, and around.