"I believe that we are put here in human form to decipher the hieroglyphs of love and suffering. And, there is no degree of love or intensity of feeling that does not bring with it the possibility of a crippling hurt. But, it is a duty to take that risk and love without reserve or defense."
- Allen Ginsberg
I saw this quote at Whiskey River, a beautiful site, and I love the quote so much, here it is. I did exactly this at the turn of the century. I did it knowing, oooohhhh, this is going to hurt, and did it anyway. I would do it again. That was the most remarkable two years of my life. And yes, it really, really hurt.
Loving like that is a duty. I can't hope to walk the spiritual path that I pray I do walk without offering that capacity to love, laying it in gratitude directly in God's lap. I cannot know I have that capacity unless I know I am willing to love like that again, having already loved like that. If I have loved and will love like that, then I am already loving like that now, as the world allows.
I could not write a poem yet today, and then here is this quotation from Allen Ginsberg. I am breaking training today, no poems, just this. It follows yesterday's post about contrition and forgiveness. Contrition, forgiveness, and love saves the world. Only in this sense, as we walk in the spirit, can it be said as the Beatles did, "Love is all you need."
Yes, love is all you need, once pretense is shed, knots (R. D. Laing wrote of knots) untangled, and courage taken up, once the eyes see both the mundane and eternity in the mundane, once the right sized hope meets the right sized truth. It turns out there are prerequisites to a love which saves the world. This kind of love is voluntary and must be. You can tell when you are in it, and when it is over you can tell if it was the real thing, when you can say, I would do that again, when you can say of your former lover after it is over, thank you for that opportunity, it was worth even this.
The Way of the Spiritual Warrior cannot be walked alone, cannot be walked at all without a love like this. All else is preparation. Once you can love one like this the possibility of loving others raises out of wish fulfillment for a nice life into the possibility of saving the world.
Contraction
1 week ago
אני אוהב לך כריסטופר
ReplyDeleteJa, dat wou ik ook net zeggen.
ReplyDeleteGhost, I got your translation.
ReplyDeleteJozien, You are agreeing but I will hope you will translate for me please.
Jozien,
ReplyDelete"yes, I too thought it well said."
something like that?
the dutch/english did not have wou
Christopher, a great post and reminder! It sounds so simple... ‘JUST LOVE’... and yet we (humans) fail so miserably at it whatever our background, religion or ilk!
ReplyDeleteCath, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteIf love in all its fullness were easy, and how it might save the world in some way obvious, then we would need no reminders and the work would have been done.
The fundamentals have been around for a long time now.
I think you are right. We must be prepared to risk the pain, if not then what?
ReplyDeleteI love this post, Christopher.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, You ask then what? Not being willing to risk the pain of honest open love of one another is one of the root causes of the pickle the human race is in, that we chase false solutions as groups. Honest open love of one another and of the ways spirit meets the world actually directly answers a deep need in us but the path to that state of being requires courage, requires paying the price, requires risking knowing we fell short.
ReplyDeleteYou speak of the risk of pain. I can promise you the pain. Love at the deepest level guarantees pain in an imperfect world. What I mean is that most of us can love better or more perfectly than the world can meet our love, or we cannot, which of itself guarantees pain if we try. Either way the pain is inevitable. It is worth it anyway. It is the only way to meet an essential need. That need unmet guarantees myriad other difficulties.
Perhaps if I do not love this will permit less personal pain. Perhaps. But it will disperse in its way, a diffuse misery that spreads out from my efforts to live well and affects many others.
Faith, good afternoon. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteChristoper - You said you couldn't write a poem, yet I see poetry in what you said about love.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to see poetry when you have poem filters on :)
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what I meant.
ReplyDeleteNo point in being here otherwise.
But you said it much more eloquently.
:0)
Love is the price of love. ee cummings I think said 'pleasure and pain are merely surfaces... love makes the little thickness of the coin'. It's easy to say we'll accept the pain, of course, doesn't mean it won't shock the hell out of us when it comes...
ReplyDeleteWhat Karen said, doesn't matter if it looks like a poem or not.
Wow. Now I'm speechless again.
ReplyDelete