Tag: real love

Real Love: Celebrating victories

Picture her,
face lit up with the false sun of some screen
scrolling,
scrolling like reaching…for
something

it will always slip
away, a balloon caught in wind-drift

 

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Love does not envy…

It’s all too easy to be envious in this wide-web world. It’s at our fingertips–the success and beauty and brilliance of others. We attach to the perceived perfection and wish it was our own. We envy, wish we had that experience, physique, relationship, thing.

We forget:
a million likes can never equal love
someone else’s highlight reel cannot be compared to our behind-the-scenes.

We forget:
Envy is a thief. It steals our own joy and robs us of reasons to rejoice.

Merriam-webster says envy is “a painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.”

So if love doesn’t do this, it must do the opposite.

Real Love must find pleasure in another’s ‘advantages,’ achievements, victories, experiences. Real love must be able to celebrate in another’s victory without making it hers.  It must be content, at rest.

Love does not envy; it enjoys another’s success. Real love celebrates.

 

Real Love: love is kind

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Big thanks to my friend, Catie, who inspired me with this gem to keep writing & thinking about real love.

I looked at my wordpress stats from this past year, and I posted a meager four times! Sure, I posted on my website, for work and for a collaborative blog from time to time, but here, just. four. times.

The reason this is so not okay (with me) is because this site has been the home to my mental wanderings and spiritual searchings since college. This is the place where I spread paint on the paper, explore ideas, and share bits of my craft.

I began the real love series with an intent to finish it week by week… annnddd only got through week one. But 2016 is my year! I am committing to post (at least!) the 11 times it takes to cover this series with the hopes that I leave 2016 a better person and a more consistent writer.

How it began

It all started with a journey through Corinthians with some of the best people around and one of the most beloved, over-quoted and under-practiced passages of the bible–a passage even that even the ‘secular’ world can’t help but quote.

4 (A)Love is patient and (B)kind; love (C)does not envy or boast; it (D)is not arrogant 5 or rude. It(E)does not insist on its own way; it (F)is not irritable or resentful;[a] 6 it (G)does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but (H)rejoices with the truth. 7 (I)Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, (J)endures all things.- Corinthians 13:4-7.

I want to dig into this, get it under my fingernails and stop taking it for granted. Because, quite simply, love is worth it.

I hope this journey is one you’ll join because my perspective is just a pinprick of light on a topic that deserves illumination. Check out the first post, fishermen lovers (love is patient) if you like, and join in to share your stories, comments, and wisdom on real love.

Continue reading “Real Love: love is kind” →

V-day for real

This morning I wake up twice. Once, briefly as my husband dresses in partial light. The second time to the sound of my phone seizing on by bedside table.
8:00.
Love Calling.

I answer and E tells me Happy Valentines Day, tells me he’s on his way to the second meeting of the day.

 Valentines Day? Oh, yes. Valentines Day.
I was going to make brownies! Do I have ingredients?
I was going to blog about Saint Valentine. Nobody knows who he really was though…
I was going to do something super thoughtful for… for lots of people.

I stumble to the kitchen, to the bathroom, back to the kitchen. Hot coffee, my laptop, some really nasty/healthy oatmeal and the worst work out of my life, then I’m in the kitchen again. Powdered sugar is everywhere and I’m butchering the brownies into a cheesy heart-shaped one for E, some smaller ones for the office.

Why?
I don’t know. I really really don’t know.

Because if he comes home, and takes off his works socks in kitchen, draping them over one of the stools for me to pick up later, and I say nothing…
if I ask him how work was and really, really listen…
if I let my mind draw near to his victories & hardships
he’d be loved.

And if we really loved then all the other stuff, the 1.whatever billion Americans spend on candy and crappy toys, it would fall away. Swallowed up by real.

A valentine’s blessing…
For the singles feeling slightly anxious and the doubles feeling less-than satisfied– for us– may we cling to the real. May we cherish the memories when we felt love drape us, a silk-lined perfect fit; may we hold to the moments we hewed out little pieces of our own hearts and minds to fully love another. May we cling to the real.

And when we see Love calling in many forms, may we always, always let Real Love in.