7 & 7: Love vs. Hate

REFLECTION:

What do two imperfect souls have to offer each other beyond a touch, a smile, a willingness to defend? Each smile has a future that’s built in, made certain by a confidence in the “better or worse”, “richer or poorer”, “in sickness and in health”, or not. How tender is that early touch, how daring their belief that it will last. And when it does, only later do the children learn how precious the gift of loyalty their parents gave. Or if it goes the other way, how deep the wounds and their hostility. And if they had the chance to redo how many would decide to just give love and not attempt to carry each and every day, to win each and every self created skirmish. Is it possible to disengage, to decide that the burden of hate, even momentary, is too great? Is it possible to believe that little losses given willingly can create a hearty truth that is expressed as confidence and trust and love, and that this can be achieved only when two agree to play. Lovers understand that loving is not the same as winning, but more about creating.

MUSES:

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
Rainer Maria Rilke

They gave each other a smile with a future in it.
Ring Lardner

The bravest things are the tenderest. The loving are the daring.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
Theodore Hesburgh

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Do not inflict your will. Just give love. The soul will take that love and put it where it can best be used.
Emmanuel

Don’t hate, it’s too big a burden to bear.
Martin Luther King, Sr.

Between whom there is a hearty truth, there is love.
Henry David Thoreau

Love, and do what you like.
St. Augustine