What is Love?

A young man, still a boy, describes listening to the favorite music of his girl-friend and thinking to himself, this is love - not the music, but the awareness of her, as a separate other from him and I think how wonderfully wise this gift he has been given truly is – this gift of knowing another for themselves, separate from ‘me’.

What is love?  It is so many things, eh?

Love is the quiet sitting together on the porch talking quietly into the night about inconsequential things with consequential people.

Love is holding your own father in your arms like a baby as he stands dying.

Love is Auden’s quick-gasp recognition of all of the other-ness of each of us, sitting outside on a sunny day.

Love is caring for another even when you don’t feel like it – especially when you don’t feel like it.

Love is traversing uncharted territory with the heart of an explorer, the spirit of a monastic, the enthusiasm of a child.

Love is the purview of poets and the landscape of farmers.

Love is riding a tide of change like a pro.

Love is having your heart take up residence somewhere outside your own body.

Love is dangerous that way.