Thursday, February 14, 2008

Making Love::
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After that gut attack on Monday night - and a sleepless night, I soon felt normal.
No hangover - no lack of energy - no lack of focus.
Unlike a virus, which lingers in weakness, it moves on and I can live on.
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Last Saturday Joan and me watched a DVD. Joy had loaned us 'La Vie En Rose' some time ago and has kept on saying it was good.
We watched it.
Gripping.
One hour too long but a great, great movie.

On Monday it won loads of awards in London.
It is about the life of Edith Piaf.
A great grief ridden story.
Take the chance to have a view of it - it has great music too.
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Booked my flights today - to Norway on 29/2 hey hey.
Flying via Oslo going out and a direct flight homewards at the end.
Really looking forward to it - and seeing great friends ........
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Valentines Day today.
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to,
doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.What is love?
Lots in the Bible about it.
Love that is.
Not just words.

There exist numerous cross-cultural unified similarities as to the nature and definition of love, as in there being a thread of commitment, tenderness, and passion common to all human existence, and ..............there are differences.
In India and parts of Southeast Asia, with arranged marriages commonplace, it is believed that love is not a necessary ingredient in the initial stages of marriage – it is something that can be created during the marriage; whereas in Western culture, by comparison, love is seen as a necessary prerequisite to marriage. Can we grow to love? Can love be made through commitment?
"My father always made me know I was fat.
I could never make him love me.
I decided nobody would love me unless I was perfect.
I felt ugly, as if I was falling down a dark hole."
Jane Fonda
Guardian

The Road Less Travelled man - Scott Peck MD, worked in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil.
Peck maintains that love is a combination of the concern
for the spiritual growth of another, and simple narcissism.

In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.
Scott Peck and his perspective on love
(in one of my favourite books:: The Road Less Travelled)

is that::
"..... love is not a feeling, it is an activity and an investment.
Love is primarily a concern for the spiritual growth of another.
Love cannot be sustained by mutual dependence, rather,
love between two parties is made stronger when they are
completely independent of one another."


There is something about love which is about the long term.
Eternal you may say.
Something about loving someone beyond behaviour.

Some time ago I considered on these pages
whether I loved humans unconditionally.

That is something I believe in.
Unconditional love - that is.
My conclusion was -
No I don't.
I don't love unconditionally.
I want to to.
But I am imperfection.
I want to love
I want to live my life as an act of love
but I fail
and - that's ok too.

"We must not think that our love has to be extraordinary.
But we do need to love without getting tired.
How does a lamp burn?
Through the continuous input of small drops of oil.
These drops are the small things of daily life:
faithfulness,
small words of kindness,
a thought for others,
our way of being quiet,
of looking,
of speaking,
and
of acting.
They are the true drops of love
that keep our
lives
and
relationships
burning like a lively flame."
Mother Teresa


There are several humans in the past and the present,
who set wondrous standards in human love.

I think it is good to strive to love.
But to fail is part of the journey of learning and journeying in love
Learning by mistakes.

“But to love another as a person we must begin by granting him his
own autonomy and identity as a person.
We have to love him for what he is in himself,
and not for what he is
to us.
We have to love him for his own good,
not for the good we get out of
him.
And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which
‘transforms’ us,
so to speak, into the other person,
making us able to see things a he sees them,
love what he loves,
experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own.
Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible.
But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation
‘into the other’
while remaining ourselves,
we are not yet capable of a fully human existence. “
Thomas Merton

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O God,

Giver of Life

Bearer of Pain

Maker of Love,

you are able to accept in us what we cannot even acknowledge;

you are able to name in us what we cannot bear to speak of;

you are able to hold out to us the glory that we cannot conceive of.

Reconcile us through your cross to all that we have rejected in our selves,

that we may find no part of your creation to be alien or strange to us,

and that we ourselves may be made whole.

Through Jesus Christ, our lover and our friend.
Amen.


www.pipwilson.com

"work like you don't need the money
dance like no-one is watching
sing like no-one is listening
and
love like you have never been hurt"