More about love.

"Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being "drawn toward." Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one's friends and enemies. Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggle, resistance, risk. People working today on behalf of women, blacks, lesbians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this country and elsewhere know that making justice is not a warm, fuzzy experience. I think also that sexual lovers and good friends know that the most compelling relationships demand hard work, patience, and a willingness to endure tensions and anxiety in creating mutually empowering bonds.

For this reason loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called "love." Love is a choice -not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity - a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh."

Passion for Justice by: Carter Heyward

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With the commercial holiday around the bend I dug this up. I'm not particularly a feminist not because I don't understand the issues but because I am not of the same clay. I think the line that speaks to me is:

"Love is a choice -not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile."

This one has taken me a long time to come to terms with. One night last week I spent recalling a relationship I was in a while ago. Though the man is gone from my life there are days when I recount all the things that transpired and think, 'boy am I ever glad I was not crazy enough to stay a moment longer'. I contributed to the madness, but it still makes my head spin to think about it.

This year I think I finally understand what it means to be present to others without pretense or guile. I think for the first time in my life I live with someone who knows my every little secret and has not once taken the opportunity to belittle me for anything.

Though I feel compelled to report every smell and outline every superb moment wrapped in his conversation; I'd rather keep it all to myself. I'd be silly not to admit that it has taken work. We did not fall into some magical love hole that erased every imperfection and made us untainted versions of ourselves. Instead we are learning each day how to be better partners. For me it's learning to listen when I feel like screaming. To lay the nagging down and pull out some down time. To stop pretending I am not my mother's child or that I am disciplined. Through it all I feel: We have grown into something beautiful. I can not imagine for one moment raising my cat with anyone else.

My dear Valentine, for you--I wish another year filled with moments of calm, additional maps and an endless supply of pizza.

(Now Super J-we need to talk about the beagle business. To beagle or not to beagle-that is the question.)

posted by Danna Saunders @ 2/12/2005 09:03:00 PM