Love is not something you earn. Love is a gift economy, like poetry. Give it away and receive it graciously. Move on from those who withhold it.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 92
Photo: View from Burg Rheinstein, Germany, July 1997
Spend time with — or talk to — someone who loves you exactly as you are. See yourself through their eyes. From this day on, commit to becoming someone who loves you exactly as you are.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 81
Whatever you do, do it with love. If you can’t feel love in your heart, then go for kindness, respect, patience — or stay silent. As difficult as it is to comprehend — and I grant you, it is difficult if not impossible to believe — absolutely everything in our lives is a stage set up for love.
— Caroline Myss, Intimate Conversations with the Divine, p. 262
It is impossible to know, in the moment, how a small act of goodness will reverberate through time. The notion is empowering and it is frightening — because it means that we’re all capable of changing the world, and responsible for finding those opportunities to protect, feed, grow, and guide love. We can all plant seeds, though only some of us may be so lucky as to sit in their shade. Since we can’t start twenty years ago, the best time to start is today.
— Bishop Michael Curry, Love Is the Way, p. 139
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 2, 2021
The truly good news is that God is not a distant God, a God to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle.
— Henri J. M. Nouwen, You Are Beloved, p. 105
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, April 2, 2021
We are being shepherded beyond our fears and needs to becoming our actual selves. This sucks and hurts some days, and I frequently do not want it or agree to it. But it persists, like water wearing through a boulder in the river. Hope springs from realizing we are loved, can love, and are love with skin on. Then we are unstoppable.
— Anne Lamott, Dusk Night Dawn, p. 190-191
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 30, 2021
Trust me on this: We are loved out of all sense of proportion. Yikes and hallelujah. Love reveals the beauty of sketchy people like us to ourselves. Love holds up the sacred mirror. Love builds rickety greenhouses for our wilder seeds to grow. Love can be reckless (Jesus is good at this), or meek as my dog, or carry a briefcase. Love is the old man in the park teaching little kids to play the violin: much time spent tuning, the children hearing their way into the key he is playing. My parents heard the key as success, security, moving expeditiously, and living as expected. But love lumbers like an elephant, it naps on top of your chest like a cat. It gooses you, snickers, smooths your hair. Love is being with a person wherever they are, however they are acting. Ugh. (A lot of things seem to come more easily to God.)
— Anne Lamott, Dusk Night Dawn, p. 190
Photo: Above Gundersweiler, Germany, April 22, 2000
Again and again you see how Jesus opts for what is small, hidden, and poor, and accordingly declines to wield influence. His many miracles always serve to express his profound compassion with suffering humanity; never are they attempts to call attention to himself. As a rule, he even forbids those he has cured to talk to others about it. And as Jesus’ life continues to unfold, he becomes increasingly aware that he has been called to fulfill his vocation in suffering and death. In all of this, it becomes plain to us that God has willed to show his love for the world by descending more and more deeply into human frailty.
— Henri J. M. Nouwen, You Are Beloved, p. 93
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 26, 2021
Be sure of at least one thing in this moment — that you are loved and worthy of love. Hold tightly to what you know to be real and true and good about who you are. Be sure of yourself.
KEEP MOVING.
— Maggie Smith, Keep Moving, p. 47
Photo: Keukenhof, Holland, April 21, 2004.
This morning I meditated on God’s eagerness to forgive me, revealed in these words: “As far as the East is from the West, so far does God remove my sin” (Psalm 103:12). In the midst of all my distractions, I was touched by God’s desire to forgive me again and again. If I return to God with a repentant heart after I have sinned, God is always there to embrace me and let me start afresh. “The Lord is full of compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy.”
It is hard for me to forgive someone who has really offended me, especially when it happens more than once. I begin to doubt the sincerity of the one who asks forgiveness for a second, third, or fourth time. But God does not keep count. God just waits for our return, without resentment or desire for revenge. God wants us home. “The love of the Lord is everlasting.”
— Henri J. M. Nouwen, You Are Beloved, p. 87
Photo: South Riding, Virginia, March 19, 2021