One of the books that is a part of my early morning ritual is Divine Sparks by Karen Speerstra. She calls it the collected wisdom of the heart. Actually it is a book of thousands of quotes about various words, ideas and concepts from almost 1,800 different people arranged in alphabetical order. The first word is “Abundance” with seven quotes, and the book ends with the word “Zoroastrianism,” where five quotes are displayed.
So how does one use and make sense of such a book? I decided to read it straight through by reading all the quotes for each word starting with the word abundance and reading only the quotes for one word each day. I started at the first of the year, and since there are just over 500 words, I won’t finish reading this book until about the middle of next year. I also try to determine the best quote for each word and highlight it. Sometimes there are several best quotes, after all these are all quotes from people famous enough to have their quotes remembered.
Last week I had made it to the word love. Love has more quotes listed than any of the words so far, fifty nine in all. I’ll probably not find another word in this wonderful book with more than fifty nine quotes, which is understandable because to quote someone we’ve all heard that “Love makes the world go round.”
But reading those fifty nine quotes on love got me to thinking more deeply about love. Where does love come from? Does love exist apart from our lives? Why do we humans love? My answer is that love comes from within us, love therefore doesn’t exist apart from our lives, and humans love because it is the easiest and fastest way to receive love from another person. And the love of another person is what humans want most in this world. Unconditional love from another person, I submit, is the greatest feeling in all the world.
The more love we have in our lives the better lives we have. The only way to get love is to give it away. Love over comes hate just as light over comes darkness. Love solves all problems. Love is the essence of life. As babies and small children, we are loved and cared for by our parents and others, and the measure of the love we experience then determines the love we have that can later by freely and unconditionally given away to others. Love is learned early in life by being loved.
My brother and sister and I have often remarked how lucky we were to have grown up in a home full of love and stability. Even with four generations under one roof, my Great Grandmother didn’t die until I was eight years old, there was never an argument, disagreement or even a slammed door that any of the three of us can remember. One of my favorite pictures is of my Great Grandmother and me sitting on the living room couch. I’m about three years old and she is reading to me.
Love is such a complicated and powerful emotion that the Greeks had four words for love. Eros is used to describe passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. Storge means affection in Greek and described the natural affection like that felt by parents for their children. Philia means friendship or brotherly love. Agape means unconditional love. Agape is used in the biblical passage known as the "love chapter", 1 Corinthians 13, and is described there and throughout the New Testament as sacrificial love.
What Matters Most…….I’ve picked three of those fifty nine quotes to help answer that question.
“Everything wants to be loved….You ever notice that trees do everything to get attention we do, except walk.” –Alice Walker – The Color Purple
“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you.” --Wayne Dyer
“You know I’m really convinced that if you were to define love, the only word big enough to engulf it all would be life. Love is life in all of its aspects. And if you miss love, you miss life. Please Don’t.” --Leo Buscaglia – Living, Loving and Learning
© 2011 #20 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467
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