Thinkin’ ‘bout LOVE
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want in love…
About what love is and what it looks like. About how to give it and receive it. About how to give it to myself. How, or better, what does it look like to nourish one’s own spiritual growth? That’s how Bell Hooks gives language to the meaning of love in “All About Love,” “Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as ‘the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”
When we nurture babies, we feed them, hold them, clean them up, clothe them, and as they grow, we teach them what they’ll need for life: how to chew and walk and talk. Then we teach them right from wrong, and about good and evil. We invite them to try new things and celebrate when they fall down as much as we celebrate when they achieve. A child takes her first step and falls, and all the adults shout “yayyy! Good job, now try again!” We notice their gifts and start to learn about the things that excite them, so we begin nurturing their callings. We sign them up for soccer tryouts or put them in an art class. We read them books and take them to groups that evolve their discoveries and broaden their experience of the world. Parents nurture children (ideally. this is not to ignore the many who do not experience nurturing in their childhood homes, but it is this nurturing we were made for and all yearn for) because they love their inner most being. They love that they are in the world. My aunt celebrates her grandkids by exclaiming “how great the world is now that you are in it!”
What if, as adults, we began to nurture ourselves? To celebrate the falls and laugh at the mistakes? What if we guided and supported our own interests by signing ourselves up for that ceramics class or starting a book about astrophysics? What if we fed ourselves well, regarding foods and ideas, wore the clothes that bring our spirits to life, and covered our bodies with scents that make us feel warm inside?
What if we loved each other?
What if we threw parties for friends who just got laid off because it was time not wasted and the start of something new. What if we caught each other when we fell and laughed and said “yayyy! Good job, now try again! I’ve got you.” What if we called out the beauty and the giftedness we see in each other? What if loving your neighbor meant taking action to nurture them? How would your life look if you made the decision to step into love by nurturing yourself and others?
We’d be a world full of people celebrating with dancing and holding each other in mourning. We’d be people who see other people as wonderfully human. We’d smile at awkwardness and embrace individuality. We’d be a world full of dreamers who go out and do. Discoveries would be made at a rapid fire pace, and art would cover all the space in our minds and every corner of our streets. We’d look at the person next to us and see our neighbor, mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, and we’d live in comfort that we are safe because we care for each other. We’d look at ourselves in the mirror, at the person in line in front of us, at our co-worker on a zoom call, at a passerby at the park, and we’d say “how great the world is now that you are in it.”
