Loving And Giving

I want to write about love yet I feel such inadequacy in this area. This may seem insincere to some given that I left the woman I was supposed to love and even in the throws of this terrible disease I would not return. On the other hand the love I have for my children is unending and I know they love me. The love of my Mom and brothers is incredibly supportive. To quote that sage and fount of much wisdom, Forrrest Gump, "I know what love is". Love is the most powerful thing in this life.

In 1 Corinthians 13:13, the Apostle Paul says “Faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.” Love is the most powerful emotion we can have albeit closely followed by hate. Love is not the opposite of hate, it is it’s sibling rival. The opposite of love is indifference; to truly not love someone is to not care in the least. You cannot hate someone without caring about them and you cannot love someone without caring about them. Hate does not destroy love nor does fear. A lack of caring is what destroys love. If you don't care, you neither love nor hate; you just don't care.

Now take the corollary to that; if you care in the least about someone, you must love them to some degree. If you hate someone, you must be so angry, so deeply afraid and feel so deeply insecure in your own self that you cannot fathom an alternative response. Even in this, love is the key. If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love others. So love has caring at its root.

If you love someone you will want to give of yourself to them; to do otherwise is impossible. Yet your own internal love of self is the well from which you draw. If your well is shallow, soured and empty, you will have little to give others even when you so desperately want to give. If you have a deep internal well, then you will have much to give.

That internal well is built on a foundation of learning and being loved. I learned about love from my Mom; she has given and continues to give. The more you give, the more you are loved, the more water will be in your well. Perversely the more you draw from that well and give to others, the fuller yours will be. The more you give, the more you will be given.

Love is not about relationships, marriage, lust, sex or any of those other things. Love is about giving, helping, sharing, kindness, forgiveness. Love is about the spirit within you, the spirit that forgives and reaches out endlessly. Love is about your ability to give knowing you will never get it back, yet give regardless. Love is the only true emotion, the only true feeling, the only real reason for life. And giving is love in action.

If you love someone, be giving to them without the hope of return. If you expect a return, perhaps it is not love that you give. If you give to someone ceaselessly and they show no willingness to give back, then perhaps they don't love you. Perhaps they just don't care.

The saddest of times in a relationship is when both people feel they are doing all the giving with nothing in return, when two people are so out of touch with each other that what the other can give they fail to appreciate in receiving. I am not sure there is any way past this, but if there is it must start with giving up, and simply giving. You have to care both about the relationship and about the other person, and you have to be willing to act on it. You have to give because there is nothing else you can do.

Maybe that is the key. First you start by giving. Loving and giving; they go hand in hand.