What the world needs now—
is love sweet love. Not just for some, but for everyone.
Hello friend,
Weddings always send my mind wandering around the word love. What does it mean, and why do we never seem to have enough of it?
I often wonder if the young, totally in love couple know what lies before them. If I’ve learned anything in all my years, it is that love requires our full attention, forgiveness, and embrace of it every day, every moment, always.
I love poetry and poetic forms, and I found one fitting for today. A cento uses the words of other poets to create a new poem, but I stretched the form to create this post—a love cento formed out of quotations*.
Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it empowers us to develop courage; to trust that courage and build bridges with it; to trust those bridges and cross over them so we can attempt to reach each other.
Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends. When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
The mark of a wild heart, is living out the paradox of love in our lives. It's the ability to be tough and tender, excited and scared, brave and afraid—all in the same moment. It's showing up in our vulnerability and our courage, being both fierce and kind.
Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold. Immature love says: “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says “I need you because I love you.”
Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. We are shaped and fashioned by what we love
Love in action only produces happiness. Love will give you inner peace. It will change your perception of everything. Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
Loving kindness is the spirit of friendship toward yourself and others. When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you'd like them to be.
Love and say it with your life. Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
I have decided to stick to love . . . Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Sometimes love is looking through others’ eyes.
Brad Troeger asks. “What is love?” His answers offer humor, insights, and more questions. In short, love is hard to define.
This week only needs one song: What the World Needs Now
“We need movements rooted in love right now, movements powered not by difference and exclusion and punishment, but by common ground, compassion, humility, healthy boundaries, patience and healing.”
—adrienne maree brown
If you would like to read more from me, visit my website. I’ll be waiting for you there.
With gratitude,
Kathryn
*Cento contributions from: Maya Angelou, Aberjhani. Marcus Aurelius, Jane Austen, Brené Brown, David Byrne, Paulo Coelho, Zelda Fitzgerald, Erich Fromm, Kahlil Gibran, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Miguel Ruiz, Rumi, Sharon Salzburg, Leo Tolstoy, St. Augustine, Vincent Van Gogh, Martin Luther King, Jr.
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