So, having been inspired by the blogs of others and the experiences of my life, I have decided to write do a blog that will have daily entries that express love in different ways and expressions, be it songs, quotations, tv shows, etc.
So, it may seem odd for me to have a picture of myself at the top of this blog entry, but it goes with today's thought. I had a "fellowship moment" with some of my dear friends yesterday, and something that came out of the meeting was the thought "show up for yourself." Often times in life, especially as black females (and I say that because it is my context), it is easier to go hard and do so much for other people that we can neglect ourselves. I know I have been guilty, and I've spent many a day concerned more about the well-being of someone else than I did my own to the point it was detrimental to my own health.
What I have been learning in recent years is that real love and care from other people comes out an the overflow of love and care for self. When I take the time to care for myself, getting enough rest, spending time with God, eating better, do self-reflection, get care when necessary (counseling in which I get some help working through the ways I think and feel and why), and making sure that I am as well as I can be, then I can provide love and care for others without secretly desiring their affirmation or doing more than I can handle, then ending up with resentment as I get worn out trying to make others whole.
Showing up for myself means that as much as I do giving to and take care of others, I have to be intentional about showing up in the moments when I am the focus of what's going on. I can't be the last on my own list, because as much as others may care, they can't take care of me like I can. Thus, I have to show up for myself and make sure that I can show up for others.
Rihanna has a song entitled "What's My Name," and while the entire song is a good thing, there is one particular line that will be the focus of today's entry. "You’re so amazing, you took the time to figure me out. That's why you take me, way past the point of turning me on." There is power in this line, and for me, it goes way beyond being sexual. I think the feeling behind it for me is the depth of care that it takes to get to know someone. I think everyone has layers, and it takes time and effort to get through the layers of stuff that we live with. For someone to care enough to take that time shows some real love and effort. When someone takes that much time and shows genuine interest, it makes me more willing to be open and vulnerable, sharing more of me than I normally would, especially with my trust issues. When I feel comfortable and open, I am willing to not only share but invest and make you feel cared for. If you take care of my needs, I will surely take care of yours. :)
People often say that real love doesn't hurt. I can understand the sentiment and concern about abuse and violence, and I would never justify or condone any sort of harm in a relationship. What I'm talking about is the pain that is experienced when the person you love is hurting and you share in that. When you really love someone and they are dealing with something that causes them pain, the connection that you share enables you to feel it, as if love (no matter the relationship) makes 2 become 1 in some ways.
In a world where we are taught to be individualistic, thinking of things as they benefit us first and foremost, it is sometimes difficult to imagine loving enough that you feel pain just because they do. Much of our lives is built around avoiding pain, whether it be isolating our hearts for fear of rejection, popping a pill at the first thought of discomfort to avoid any potential of disease, spending years in school getting degrees to make sure we are marketable so we don't experience poverty and financial instability, or buying things like guns and alarm systems to ward off the threat of danger to our homes and families. While caution is good and wisdom is important, some of our precautions keep us from being able to live, and such is the case with avoiding the depths and vulnerabilities of love for fear of sharing with another person.
Admittedly, some of the people closest to me are currently in very tender places in their lives, and it is difficult to see them suffer, even a little. My love for them makes me desire the best for them, and seeing them in anything less than the best of health, wholeness, and happiness brings pain to my heart. I having a burning desire to rescue them from their situations (and in some cases, from themselves), restoring them to the glory which I know they are capable of and deserve. Yet, love has to tap my shoulder and remind me that some furnaces must be endured in order for a person to grow and get better. It is at this moment when my pain is the greatest, because I want to help, and sometimes there are things that I could do to help, but I cannot, because Wisdom prohibits me inhibiting their process.
The video is of a monarch butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Admittedly while watching it, I wanted to fast forward to the end and see it fly, but the beauty in this process is that the time and struggle that it takes for the butterfly to get out of its cocoon creates the strength required for the butterfly to live. A story's told of a man who saw a butterfly struggling to leave its cocoon, and he got some scissors, cutting the cocoon to help the insect shorten its process. Unfortunately, this made the butterfly weak and unable to fly and it died shortly after. What's my point? Love will give us the wisdom to know when to help and push, but it will also let us know there are times when all we can do is watch and pray as someone we love struggles. But at the end of the struggle, the glory that our loved one finds will bring a joy that outshines any pain we may have felt. Our job as the loved one is to be a stable presence of love and availability, ever keeping a prayerful eye, even if we are pushed away (because struggle does interesting things to people).
Something that I didn't know about this butterfly was the part that happened after it emerged from the cocoon. I was looking for it to immediately fly away, but instead, it stayed in place so that its wings could unfold and stretch out to their proper size. If the butterfly had tried to fly prematurely, even after it was fully formed, the end result would not have been good. So even though the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly was complete, the butterfly still had to get used to what being a butterfly meant before it could take flight.
Do you love someone that is deeply hurting right now? Talk to God and talk to them. See what you can do to help, and let love guide you in how to strengthen and encourage without cutting their process.
So, I was thinking about what to write for today, and I realized that if I'm going to talk about love for a year, at some point I should define it (as I see it). Well, considering I've done this recently, I figured I would copy and paste, giving you all an idea of what I mean when I say love. The following is taken from an article I wrote for Examiner.com. What I decided to do, instead of defining love in so many words, was to list some elements that all love should include:
Authenticity – love should allow a person to be true to him/herself without fear of rejection. Even if there is disagreement, the freedom to express oneself authentically should be there.
Respect – defined on dictionary.com as “esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person,” it is important to respect and appreciate the basic human value of all people, but especially those that you love.
Affection/care – when loving someone, it is important to feel a connection to that person emotionally. This allows you to empathize with him/her, gaining the compassion to want to see the best for his/her life.
Relationship – in order for love to grow and exist, it is necessary to have a sense of commitment and consistency with the object of your affection. Without time and conversation, it is hard to cultivate relations.
Openness – love requires understanding. As a personal shares authentically, there will inevitably be things that disagree with your desires, but love creates a space to discuss these without judgment. With such open discussion, compromises and adjustments can be made to keep the relationship flowing with the differences drawing people together.
While this is not an exhaustive list, I do see it is as the basics. This list can be applied to all relationships – friendship, parent-child, mentor-mentee, romantic partners, relationship with God, and even relationship with self.
I welcome other thoughts/ideas as to what is included in love, and later in the year, I may do an update or even use some ideas for future blog entries. I hope this sparks some good dialogue.
(Yes, this is a day late. The day got away from me for many reasons yesterday. I'll post 2 today.)
In my mind, one of the most underrated types of love is that of friendship.Family is often hailed as the primary relationship that can be counted on when all else fails. According to bell hooks, one of my new favorite authors, "many of us learn as children that friendship should never be seen as just as important as family ties. However, friendship is the place in which a great majority of us have our first glimpse of redemptive love and caring community" (All About Love, 134). I’m not saying that family isn’t important, but for me, the relationships of my friends have far outweighed the relational influence of family in life because of the way things have gone in my life.The love shared among friends is rarely sung about in songs or talked about as much as romantic love or family love, but I think it deserves a bit more attention.For that reason, I chose “Count on Me” as my song for today.
While families tend to stick together and relate because they have to, friends are relationships that you get to choose, and this freedom can make for great strength in a relationship. In my mind, because a friend is not tied to you by the obligation of blood, their decision to stay with you through the good and bad, ugly and beautiful, ups and downs, speaks to a strong love and acceptance, provided that it's a healthy, accepting relationship. Thankfully, I've been blessed with some amazing friends in which I am free to be myself. Because of this freedom, I'm able to grow and become more of myself, maturing and learning to love more deeply and fully. I've also had friends who stick by me when my insecurities and quirks made it difficult and for that I am grateful. It's good to know that I can count on some of the people in my life, and I am inspired by them to be the best friend I can be in return.
Think about the people you call 'friend.' Yes, Facebook has named everyone that we are connected to friends, but think about the real true friends who are in your life. What do those relationships look like Are they freeing, healthy, positively influential? Friends can be a great source of joy. Be sure that you have some and make yourself one as well.
So, initially I wanted to use this song as a follow-up from yesterday's entry about sacrifice. Yesterday talked about being willing to die for someone, and there's a line in Lauryn Hill's "Ex-Factor" that strikes me as relates to sacrifice: "You said you'd die for me / Give to me, give to me / Why won't you live for me?" While sacrifice and compromise in a relationship can be difficult, it is almost easier to say that you'll die for someone than to live for them. Example: "baby, I love you. You know that. I would die for you." "But you won't stop cheating on me?" It sounds like a noble declaration to say that you'll lay down your life for someone, but the bigger question is how you live with and treat the person in everyday life and relationship.
But then as I listened to the rest of the song, I realized that there are 2 larger themes that relate to love that I have to address. The first is manipulation. "No matter how I think we grow / You always seem to let me know / It ain't workin' / And when I try to walk away / You'd hurt yourself to make me stay." As she says near the beginning of the song, "Loving you is like a battle / And we both end up with scars." Her lover seems to be unable to act maturely and functionally in the relationship. He says things aren't working, but then he might say something like "I'll just die if you leave me." That's NOT love - that may co-dependence or addiction or insecurity, but twisting someone's arm (literally or figuratively) is not love. To manipulate is defined as "tomanageorinfluenceskillfully,esp.inanunfairmanner; tonegotiate,control,orinfluence(somethingorsomeone)cleverly,skilfully,ordeviously." Love doesn't influence or manage one's feelings, creating difficult situations or control people, trying to make things come out its own way. Manipulation comes out of fear and insecurity. If a person thought that you loved them genuinely, there would be no need for them to try to control/manipulate you, because they would trust you to have their best interests at heart. If you find yourself being manipulated in a relationship, even in the little things, you may want to assess that relationship and evaluate the strength of the actual love in it. The other thing I saw is one that I see far too often. "I keep letting you back in / How can I explain myself / As painful as this thing has been / I just can't be with no one else. See I know what we got to do / You let go and I'll let go too / 'Cause no one's hurt me more than you / And no one ever will." She is aware that the relationship is bad for (most likely because of the pain it's caused her) and she remains there. She has given her power to him, because she doesn't say "I'm leaving." She says, "you let go and I'll let go too," but it's clear from the other lyrics that he won't let go. Her level of self-love doesn't compare to her love for him, despite the destructive situation. She questions her decision, but seems unable/unwilling to part ways, no matter how much pain she has suffered. We must love ourselves enough to let painful situations go, especially when they involve manipulation and this level of pain. No one deserves to be hurt, and everyone deserves healthy love. In order to find healthy love, though, it's often necessary to let go of people, ideas, memories, etc that would hold you in bad situations for their own needs. Letting go of someone you love is never easy, even if they are abusing you, but your love and care for self must be enough for you to leave, and loving yourself enough to move forward will definitely bring about more love and positive than you could imagine. Fight for yourself - you're worth it.
I have always loved this movie and the books from which it came. The Christology and Christian elements always made me smile. Even after my seminary journey, I can still appreciate the beauty of the movies, even with a slightly different theological perspective. I watched this movie last night so that I could prepare to show it to the kids in Children's Church, and the same part of the movie struck me as always. The video above covers the conversation/the reason for the sacrifice, the sacrifice itself, and the end result. And the lines in the movie that accompany it are gold. The White Witch has this to say just before she kills Aslan: "You know, Aslan, I'm a little disappointed in you. Did you honestly think by all this that you could save the human traitor? You are giving me your life and saving no one. So much for love. Tonight, the Deep Magic will be appeased, but tomorrow, we will take Narnia forever! In that knowledge, despair... and die!" She sees his love and sacrifice as stupid, and she's plotted to use his death as her means of victory.
Yet, as in the Christian story, the innocent laying down his life is resurrected, and Aslan explains his resurrection this way: "If the Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the deep magic differently. That when a willing victim who has committed no treachery, is killed in a traitor's stead, the stone table will crack, and even death itself would turn backwards." In my mind, this speaks to the power of Love. Whether you're a Christian or not, you have to admit that Jesus had a lot of love to do what he did. Whether his love was for humanity and he was dying for their sins, his love was for God and his death was part of the path that his call took him on, or his love was for his people and he, like MLK, was willing to lay down his life for his cause, what he did was out of immense love. When Love is this great, it has the power to topple even death, which is why Aslan came back to life as Jesus did.
That kind of love doesn't typically show itself in modern times. We've instead become selfish and self-centered, doing things only after we've figured out the benefits that they hold for us. Now, I'm not suggest we catch grenades for people or anything like that, but I am suggesting that love does involve some level of sacrifice, even if it's just abiding someone's annoying quirk in order to remain in relationship with that person. When we are willing to love even past people's faults, that love can create a power that even death cannot destroy. It can also confirm the adage "love conquers all," because love can cause some amazing things to happen.
As I close this reflection, I ask you to think about the things you may need to give up in order to let love live and flourish in your life. Maybe you want people to be perfect before you love them... maybe your past hurts and fears are standing in the way of you giving/receiving love... maybe you want your way so much so that you refuse to compromise and meet someone halfway... Whatever the case may be, take time to see what you might need to sacrifice in order to gain/give love. [Note: I am not saying to sacrifice yourself, your dignity, your integrity, or anything like that for love. I'm a proponent of remaining true to yourself and of loving yourself fully so that loving others doesn't come out of a deficit. What I am saying is that your need for a mate to be 6'5, driving a Lexus, and fluent in 4 languages may need to be sacrificed...]
Much love!
