The beginning…

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There is always a beginning, a starting point. Literally everything has one, even a day starts in a moment. There’s always a first breath, a blossom, a scream, a thought, a look, a word, a touch, a kiss, a single spark and a point of origin. Whether Christian, Atheist or Agnostic all agree that there is a beginning. All we argue over are technicalities.

What happens when the sun descends beneath the horizon and what happens when we taste our last breath? Our beliefs shape our answers to these technicalities and our answers to these technicalities shape our lives. There is a beginning to everything, even the end. As for the answers to the technicalities of the beginning. To believe in a God, chance or a chemical reaction; it’s entirely up to us. I choose to believe that it all began with God. I believe that “In the beginning there was God…”

“With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere.” C. S. Lewis

Life illuminated...

 

Author and artist Henry Miller once wrote “Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands. It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation. It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice. It is life illuminated.”

The idea of real love can often times bring out the romantics and cynics in force. The romantics argue that true and 'real love' exists, that it lasts if only you find the right one/ones. The cynics (myself usually included) lean towards the argument that the whole idea of 'real love' is just a grown-up version of Santa Clause; a myth we've been fed since childhood to keep us buying magazines, joining clubs, and doing therapy.

Then there are those who argue that we have the ideal all wrong. In her book All About Love, Bell Hooks quotes Erich Fromm “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling – it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If lover were only a feeling there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go.”

She goes on herself to write “How different things might be if, rather than saying, 'I think I'm in love,' we were saying, 'I've connected with someone in a way that makes me think I'm on they way to knowing love,' Or if instead of saying 'I am in love' we were saying 'I am loving or 'I will love.”

The argument of 'real love' is one of those things like grace; we will never fully get it. As much as the cynic knows we will never attain it in perfection, something in us continues (despite all opposition) to believe that life is better with it. Life is better when we are striving to accept and give it more fully, even if our all attempts are watered down reflections of the ideal. 

And maybe just maybe there is a 'real love' that is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects and never demands. A love that replenishes, by grace going on and on. A love that burns, because it knows sacrifice. Maybe there is a love that is life illuminating if we choose to search for, accept and offer it.