Imagine to Remember

“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

⁣M. Scott Peck
⁣
Our cultural depictions of love are narrow. Romantic love is held up above and apart all other forms of love; familial love, community love, spiritual love and the love between friends. Or worse yet, the celebration of lovelessness as a personal feat above the messiness of the human experience. A culture that prioritizes the right brain rationality above all other ways of knowing also devalues the things we can only know through feeling, intuition and communion. ⁣
⁣
The new focus on self-love is often an excuse self-indulgences and separation; things that should not and cannot be called love or care. Care for the self necessitates care for other beings. Love is a state of doing and not being, it as bell hooks describes, a commitment we must renew everyday. ⁣
⁣
The increased focus on the self, without adequate focus on the collective breeds more separation. It is the separation from ourselves, from others and from the natural world that makes us sick. Disconnection is not natural. We cannot disregard the forces that have shaped our distorted way of thinking and being. The lovelessness in our hearts is the destruction we sow the earth. In the same way that the component parts of our bodies are similar to sea water, clay and stars, the same analogy can be drawn between the inners and outworlds. The turmoil of the inner world is the turmoil of the outerworld. We can see the signs in ourselves and on the horizons. To cultivate and nurture love in our own hearts and lives is to play a role in the healing of the world. ⁣