"maybe the most that we can do is just to see each other through"

[hermionesviolin]

ecosystem wrote "I don't think people should be allowed to say they're in love unless they also say they're in run." That was one of those statements that just sort of hit me upside the head, the reminder that though we distinguish between "I love X" and "I am in love with X" love is still a verb, and can you say you're in love with someone if you aren't loving that person every moment of the day? -- but then, that's of course an entirely unreasonable request to make of any human because it's impossible for us to be thinking of any single thing all the time.

I think i'm still figuring out what it means to be friends with people, what it means to care for/about people, what it means to love people, what it means to live.


I think i may be on the edge of tears for a while.


you can talk a great philosophy
but if you can't be kind
to people every day
then it doesn't mean that much to me
it's the little things you do
it's the little things you say
it's the love that you give along the way
-Ani DiFranco, "looking for the holes"

“Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?” He paused again, his eyes misty now, then went on. “I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one’s life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. Do you understand what I am saying?”
-from The Chosen by Chaim Potok

Comments

[carpdeus.livejournal.com]

can you say you're in love with someone if you aren't loving that person every moment of the day?

Love is a choice. It's messy, painful and heartwrenching. It's also the most beautiful and healing thing you can experience.

Can you love someone every moment of the day? No <shakes head> You're correct. We have to live in addition to loving. And there come times when we those we love will hurt us, for each of us live in our own skins and can never communicate fully to the other what we mean. We're human, we'll misunderstand, misconstrue and just plain miss what someone is attempting to tell us.

But you can choose to love someone. Even if they hurt you. No, you can't love them every moment of every day but you can love them when it counts <smiles gently> and lots of time when it doesn't matter. The hardest thing in this live, according to Buffy, may be to live in it but the harder thing is to love and accept the people we love as human beings, fraught with faults and imperfections but knowing they can love us with our faults and imperfections as well.

Peace,
-J

[laynamarya.livejournal.com]

Love isn't ONLY a verb. It's also a state of being. I love a lot of people, and I am IN love with one. Being in love doesn't mean thinking about someone every second of the day. Being in love DOES mean loving someone every second of the day. But you don't have to be thinking of someone in order to love him/her. Being in love (I believe) means that someone changes you. It means someone makes you happier, it means that your connection with someone makes you a better person, better than you thought possible. It means you understand what it means to love yourself. And you are WITH yourself every second of the day, and as you live with yourself, yourself in love, you become more and more beautiful. Being in love with someone means growing yourself. It means caring more, believing more, living more fully.

There is a passage in the Bible from Saint Paul instructing Christians to pray unceasingly. (This is one of Saint Paul's flashes of brilliance.) Now, this has taken me a lot of contemplation and discernment, but I do not believe that means saying prayers every second of the day. It means living for God, doing everything you do in a holy way. And your life becomes a prayer. So it is with love. If you live in love, you ARE in love. And God is love, ya know.