by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
Love is a feeling, the warmth of an embrace when spouses finally find each other at home after work and commitments, the joy of getting flowers or holding a grandchild, the pleasure of someone making your favorite dessert.
Love is sometimes passionate, sexual, sensual, intimate. Love is attraction, the excitement of meeting someone who reads as much or as widely, who cares about sustaining Earth, who values hope over cynicism, whom one can be oneself with.
Many people end their conversations on the phone, “Love you.” In my family we tend to say, “More later.” It’s the same sentiment. The conversations will continue and keep us connected.
Love lived faithfully and sustained over time translates into actions. Love is a verb. Cook, clean, wash clothes, plan, shop, pay bills, fix. Like the bass drum in a marching band, these actions set the pace and rhythm of our days. Hard won achievements become cymbal crashes. Acts of kindness and gratitude lift our hearts like babbling flutes.
As in Jesus’ life, our lives sometimes ask more, even everything we can give. A sick child, a sick parent, mental illness, trips to the doctor, worry, fatigue. Our lives ask in the end all we have to give.
Jesus stakes his claim with us in our capacity to love one another. In each act we transcend our individual selves and free the power that heals and gives life, that holds families and friends together, that inspires service of country and church, that draws neighbors into communities.
- Whose love inspires your own?