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From: Kristina-Delicious Agony Progressive Rock Radio
Date: 15 Oct 2002
Time: 16:13:52 -0400
Remote Name: 205.188.209.9
"The courage to love"... Please bear with me as I go through this. Insight comes to me as I go (then again, it may not), so what I write at first may well be contradicted by what I end up with. "The first will be last and the last will be first.", or something like that. At first thought, the obvious meaning of "the courage to love" is the willingness to risk, acting on the decision to go ahead with our heart without yet knowing if the future will hold success or failure, pain or joy; when we should well know that it will hold both. I've knocked around with this love thing long enough to have learned that the obvious isn't always simple. It's like Nick wrote, "simple does not mean simplistic." It's a downright truth that love involves *both* pain and joy, or is that life? I'm not so sure that love is something we do. I think it may be more of something that "becomes", something we experience. And to have the courage to experience love, we also have to have the courage to experience its opposite. Sitting here writing this, I'm fully reminded that love is the most curious enigma to me. I'm pretty much dumbfounded. I have society-taught ideas that lean me toward thinking how I love my family. Then I think how angry I can become at them and I wonder if love is a fleeting emotion. Next comes thoughts of the moments I've felt real agape, overwhelming sympathy and acceptance for all. I tend to think that love as we know it, is not the same thing for those who have seen. If you look back on the great messengers we've had, Buddah, Jesus, Hermes, Yahweh, Allah, etc., how many can you name that were in a relationship like we commit to? How many spoke of the love between a couple? I've read no more than a few lines on partners, specifically. It's like ground that either no one has sussed, or those who know don't tell. Or, is it because there's no need to touch on it because it all has to do with self? What I think, what all signs point to, is that a coupling needs to actually be that, a coupling - the merging of two into one, each half supporting the other without imposing their will, and the one entity then going from there. Imagine for a moment *being* that within yourself. It may be easier to imagine being in that type relationship, one in which neither of you tries to impose your will on the other. All paths would be open and appreciated, all paths. Love, perhaps is the treasure gained from achieving that. The Kingdom. Life. If we don't have that, aren't we just dead machinery? If we can manage that coupling within ourselves, surely we will be able to manage it with another person, and with the All. What I'm ending up with is this: The real enchilada, the thing that will actually take our participation in to let love manifest *itself*, lies in our having the courage to *be*. -- Kris -- www.deliciousagony.com -- -- [email protected] OR [email protected] -- --From the Gospel of Thomas, the Nag Hammadi Library: "Jesus said, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you have within you will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.'"