Okay – this is a sad state. I signed up to get motivated and somehow lost steam somewhere between the coffee maker and the laundry room. Crud… It’s not that I haven’t been motivated or creative, I just never made it to actualization. It’s time to snap out of it.
The first “The Writing Parent” creative theme of the week that I missed was on LOVE. Here goes...
LOVE
adulation, affection, allegiance, amity, amorousness, amour, appreciation, ardency, ardor, attachment, case, cherishing, crash, crush, delight, devotedness, devotion, emotion, enchantment, enjoyment, fervor, fidelity, flame, fondness, friendship, hankering, idolatry, inclination, infatuation, involvement, like, liking, lust, mad for, mash, partiality, pash, passion, piety, rapture, regard, relish, respect, sentiment, soft spot, taste, tenderness, the hots, weakness, wild for, worship, yearning, zeal
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When we are little children, we LOVE everything. We love ice cream. We love kittens. We love snow. We love to play with our toys. We love preschool. We love our preschool teacher. We love Mommy and Daddy.
When we are teenagers, we still love a lot of things. We love that new outfit. We love going to the mall. We love hanging out. We love that new song. We love that new band. We love that hottie on the television show. We love that cute guy (or girl) in Biology class and then another cute guy in English class (or girl) and then another cute guy (or girl)… “love of the week.” We don’t love school anymore and we don’t love too many teachers. And we certainly don’t think we love Mom and Dad as much as we used to because they start cramping our style. (In fact, some have been known to scream “I hate you” at their parents in the teen years.)
When we are in our 20’s, we love ourselves. We love our jobs or careers. We love our new condo. We love our new car. We love our independence. We love to party. We love the Manolo Blanik designer shoes we saved up for for 8 months. We might love our parents again as long as they aren’t trying to marry us off or force us to do what they want.
When we are in our 30’s, some of us love another person more than we love ourselves and some of us love ourselves even more than we did when we were 20. We love our new house. Some of us have children to love. Fewer of us love our careers. We love going out for dinner without our children in tow. More of us love our parents again because now that we are parents ourselves, we realize just how smart OUR parents really were. In fact, there’s a saying that the older we get, the smarter our parents get.
When we are in our 40’s and 50’s, we love ourselves as we are. We love our partners more deeply and more maturely. We definitely don’t love our jobs but rather want to love a “vocation” and want to love having our own businesses or being our own bosses. We love that our children are almost fully grown. We love chocolate (although I think we have ALWAYS loved chocolate). We love peace and quiet. We love our new-found spirituality. We love our freedom. We love our “me” time. We love our parents as much as we did when we were little children because we know we don’t have much time left with them.
When we are in our golden years, we love naps. We love reading (more than ever). We love Ben Gay because it works. We love our grandkids especially since we can spoil them and send them home to their parents. We love elevator music. We love going slow and appreciating the beauty of the things around us. We love the “good old days.”
Love… ain't it grand?
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1 Corinthians 13: 1-8
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
I have always clung to this definition and description of love. Even if you are not a Christian, this is one of the best illustrations of what real love is.
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