I’ve been thinking about the purity of a child’s life and their love. How freely they give it away. How little expectation they have of anything coming back. It is apparent that this is the basic original condition: love. If you provide a home, provide space, provide presence and provide warmth, children flourish. They flourish because these conditions allow their original condition of love to appear. There’s no blockage. No hesitancy. Like a river without anything in it’s way. In the spirit of that, some examples of love below.
- A mother and a newborn.
- Watching the sunrise.
- Your favorite sports team, winning in overtime…in a championship game.
- Visiting a country you’ve always dreamt of.
- Coming back home after a long time away.
- Finding the person of your dreams and committing to them. And then being with them 50 years later.
- Watching flowers bloom in the spring.
- A dog sleeping across you.
- Graduation. Looking across the podium to find your child. Knowing what you sacrificed to get them there.
- A simple, or exquisite meal you prepared for people you care about.
- Friends at dinner.
- Giving to charity that you care deeply about.
- A redone home that you carefully planned and built.
- Finishing a painting you’ve been working on for years.
- A final goodbye.
- Eyes closed at your place of worship. Be that at Church or in nature.
- An incredibly arduous workouts conclusion.
- Coffee and rain.
We tend to conflate the idea of love as some feeling that can only be felt in only very special circumstances. Watching children makes one realize that not to be the case. You can find it most anywhere at anytime. You don’t have to create it. It’s always there. You just have to unblock the things that are stopping you from feeling you. You have to remove love from an artificial pedestal and bring it back down to where it belongs. Right next to you.