“Nothing you can do, but you can learnHow to be you in timeIt’s easy–
All you need is loveAll you need is loveAll you need is love, loveLove is all you need” -The Beatles (Lennon/McCartney)
How can love help you learn how to be you?
Love Releases Life
“Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.” -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
How can you release hatred and bitterness today?
Love Unlocks the Door
“This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.” -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, in “Beyond Vietnam”
How have you experienced the powerful force of love?
Loving Our Enemy Neighbors
“Grant that we will love Thee with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, even our enemy neighbors.” -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from a prayer following his sermon “Loving Your Enemies,” 3/7/61
How do you react to the spiritual teaching to love your enemies?
No Questions Asked
“In my life, I have received this big, engulfing, no-questions-asked love. From old church ladies who winced at my blue hair but loved me anyway; from my ‘Do we have to talk about feelings?’ little brother when I was shattered into depressed, weeping shards on the kitchen floor and he sat beside me…I am broken yet beloved. In all the moments when I needed love but didn’t deserve it, hadn’t earned it, couldn’t appreciate it—love enveloped me, a bounty without end.” -Kate Landis, from Stubborn Grace: Faith, Mental Illness, and Demanding a Blessing
When have you received no-questions-asked love?