Love

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
-Mother Teresa

"Where there is love there is life."
–Gandhi

"To love another person is to see the face of God."
–Victor Hugo

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching I thought a post on the topic of love would be appropriate. Love is a very charged word that has a depth of meaning to everyone. There are many forms of love that exist in the world. Love has launched ships and started wars; love has helped to create some of the most inspired works of art and has destroyed whole nations. Love is indeed a powerful and driving force within the human race.

From the time we are born we begin to recognize love, or the lack of it, in our lives. We learn to love ourselves and love others based on these early experiences and tend to lean towards what we’ve been taught. This can be changed over time if need be or we perhaps it doesn’t need to be because we are happy.

The first thing we need to learn is to love ourselves. If we don’t love ourselves it becomes harder for us to love others and to be loved. All of us have both positive and negative aspects to ourselves and our personalities. When we love ourselves we tend to focus more on the positive aspects and let them shine through more which allows others to see these wonderful aspects.

We need to learn to love others. To love the Divine who loved us enough to bring us into being. We also need to learn to love our families even though this can be hard at times. We also should strive to love everyone in the world. Everyone has the spark of the divine in them and everyone is worthy of our love.

Love must be given freely and accepted freely to exist. You cannot put conditions or rules on love and expect it to flourish. When it is restricted love can tend to fade, love only grows when allowed to do so. So open your hearts and let the love flow for love given only brings more love back in return.

Happy Valentines Day!!
(This post also appears on my other blog www.revdavidpsmith.com.)