Click Here For Images &
Heart With Stars Pictures - Pictures
A good friend and media social networking mentor has asked me too contribute my thoughts on "LOVE" for a new book she is releasing.
It is something I do all day - every day, but being asked to ponder "it", well, it was quite the challenge.
There are so many different angles I could have taken. I will not give away what my final thoughts were, but it made me want to share with you.
One angle I did NOT take was the state of "LOVE" in the world today.
The definition of "LOVE" as printed on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary states that love can be a noun or a verb. It is derived from "Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lēof dear, Latin lubēre, libēre to please
Date: before 12th century."
Love can be an attraction, affection, "warm attachment or enthusiasm".
It can be endearment or copulation. It can even be God.
Wikipedia includes "LOVE" as a religious tone. I found that rather funny, in an irony based humor, seeing as the biggest threat to the existence of love today, is pouring from these countries who may have the capacity to love but also spew the most global threatening hate {uh, yes, that includes "us" and many of our racist, homophobic, anti-other stances).
In Judaism, AHAVA's principles listed are "defining love from the Jewish point of view as 'giving without expecting to take'(from Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler 's Michtav me-Eliyahu, Vol. 1)".
Many of us are familiar with the good 'ole Christian speak of "Love your neighbor as yourself are the two most important things in life (the greatest commandment of the Jewish Torah, according to Jesus; cf. Gospel of Mark chapter 12, verses 28–34)".
{this verse is often translated to: Love your neighbor, turn him into yourself and if he won't kill him/maim him/or take all of his natural born rights away.}
In Islam, Wikipedia states that those who "encompass the Islamic view of life as universal brotherhood ... that applies to all who hold the faith".
Those who have researched love know there are millions of philosophies on the subject. From Socrates,Plato,Freud, and one of my favorites - Fyodor Dostoyevsky : "Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth".
So where has love brought us?
With the news that Al-Queda continues to threaten global peace, as Tibetans remain prisoners in their own land, while Native Americans have had to buy their own land back, and incessant reports of killings across the globe over brutal ideologies that are not at the core of their belief system, hmmm, I have had to really ponder if love is in play at all, ever.
DO the perpetrators of these actions have anything more going on than EGO appears valid. Entitlement does not equal genocide. If you think something is yours, or that you should have it and try to take it - that makes you a bully.
These ongoing atrocities are not love. These people who promote these actions are not religious zealots they're murderous psychopaths. These governments and factions do not love their children ... they hate so much, judge so much, that they have no idea what love is.
Maybe we all need to implement a global conversation about love. It should be a mandate if you want to reside on this planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment