Navigation
Member Log In
Luck's Leaf
Luck’s Leaf …….February 2012
Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy G*d my G*d:
Where thy diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. 2 Ruth 1:16-17
These beautiful words are spoken by the biblical Ruth to her mother-in-law. Ruth’s husband; Naomi’s son has died. Naomi is trying to encourage her daughter-in-law to return to her own people and remarry, but Ruth knows that Naomi has no other and a woman alone in biblical times would not fare well. She’d more than likely die alone, sick and destitute. Both women in their love for each other want what is best for the other and they are more than willing to sacrifice for the other. Sacrifice is lovely at this level where each is caring and loving of the other, and the story ends well.
February is the month of love we say though of course it is the month of much else. This morning I am thinking about a meditation I just read about the cliché’ of looking for love in all the wrong places. Colleague David S. Blanchard reminds me that we look for love in the obvious places, and as a result we are often disappointed.
Let us be reminded that love is found in hard places too. It is just as valid, maybe more valid in those hard places because it is not so easily assessable….often it is downright hard work….the work of love. There can be love in being told we are wrong. There can be love in sharing regret. There can be love in telling hard truths. There can be love in letting the one(s) you love leave you. There can be love in limiting destructive behavior. There is love in grief.
None of the above is the love promised by fairy godmothers or in fairy tales, princes on white horses and princesses. Blanchard says it s the kind of love experienced by frogs and dwarfs---imperfect and real, I’d say, like our love and like us. And yet we don’t give up; we keep on trying “to get it right” because we must—we care enough to enter the fray. This harder love brings us closer to finding the missing pieces of ourselves that we need to make us more whole.
Love comes to us often when we are not looking; we might not recognize it for what it is at the time. Perhaps we could keep our eyes open, especially this month, to see the love around us….love we take for granted possibly, in our well-worn relationships, or love that calls us to our higher ways of being, love that makes us kinder, or love that says, No.
We are changed by our love, stretched and grown by our commitments to the work—sometimes hard work-- of love. Blessed be you lovers of life as you go your ways each day with eyes and hearts open to the love in your lives. JL
