In writing this blog I pored through a great number of quotes for definitions, for the experiences of others, and for “knowing.” Love is now so commonly used that “like” seems passé. It’s always interesting to hear the blaring of millionaires, who can do more, broadcasting their love for their supporters who they don’t have a clue about. These statements are sooner acceptable if they could be interpreted as their love of mankind because no true love would have them reap the benefits of those who support them without giving back from their great store.
But this blog is not to specifically speak of that kind of love. The great writers, some of who, evidently, knew nothing of the quintessential love, if indeed it exists, have broken up the concept in pieces and degrees, as an excuse for preoccupation with that which, on a spiritual plain is least understood and is all embracing. So love has become fragments and likened to a pool where water is controlled and issued in scoops or buckets. They have listed love thus:
Philia — Affectionate Love without romantic attraction
Pragma — Enduring Love. …
Storge — Familiar Love. …
Eros — Romantic Love. …
Ludus — Playful Love. …
Mania — Obsessive Love. …
Philautia — Self Love. …
Agape — Selfless Love.
But true love cannot exist for self alone, spouse, children, extended family or nations where there is prejudice, where culture, caste or creed are frowned upon and where Bible thumping preachers fail to continuously convey the message that the image and likeness of God is that which mobilizes us all and makes us one human race under God and that indeed, true love is selfless.
Here are some quotes on love from those who apparently have a deeper understanding:
Love loves to love love – James Joyce
Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star – Edward E. Cummings
A loving heart is the truest wisdom – Charles Dickens
Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end – Madame De Stael
Who, being loved, is poor? – Oscar Wilde
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams – In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams
― Edgar Allan Poe
Universal love or the love of God, which is the only true love, cannot be compartmentalized. It’s not there one minute and gone the next, without good reason. It cannot be issued in piecemeal, it cannot discriminate. It doesn’t see color and it encompasses the world. True love is too powerful to be contained and so must be given.
The truth of hatred reverberates in the fact that the notion or expression of love has eluded humankind seemingly forever now, as each culture in its own right, has been far removed from a living example of the true definition of love. Is alive as a result of being fed suffering, oppression, and mental slavery. Hatred and prejudice are behaviors that are taught through experience and example.
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Marlene Daley
Founder & Producer
