Love is simple.

It is seeing
with compassion,
accepting
without prejudice.

I have heard it said that God is Love,
and that God is the Creator of everything,
and that God IS everything.

Can this all be true?

If so,
then I am one
of God’s creations,
and I am part
of everything,
and God the Creator
is in me,
creating
and loving.

Don’t be a hater of hatred -
that will only spread more hate.

Be a lover of love instead,
and that will spread more love!

I grow tired of people
appearing to want things
that I feel obliged to give,
unless I feel inclined
to discount and disparage
what they seem to want.

It’s the sad old dance
of one ego grasping at another,
a tangled tango of attachment,
desire, and fear.

Why is it so hard
to cast off this burden
and stand before another human
free of wanting,
open to the give and take
of spontaneous being?

How do we meet another in neutrality,
so our natural love may flow freely?

How do we scrape away the film of illusion
that hides each person we meet
behind a wall of our own projections?

How do we see through our attractions and aversions
to reveal the fellow being that stands before us?

How long will it take
to see beyond these questions
to the truth behind them,
that all that separates us from each other
is the interference of our own thoughts?

Romantic love
is the falling away
of the boundaries you perceive
between you and another.

Universal love
is the falling away
of the boundaries you perceive
between you and ALL others.

You may fall in love,
and out of love,
with a particular person.

But when you learn
how to love everyone,
yourself included,
that can last forever.

Things don’t care
if they are seen,
but we, as humans,
do.

We long to be cherished,
dreading dismissal
or disgust.

But a thing
simply is,
devoid of doubt,
empty of self-image,
free of concern
for what it is.

How would it be
to learn that freedom,
abandoning our discontent
with how we are?

Perhaps,
by learning to love
everything else,
just as it is,
we can learn to love ourselves,
and each other,
just as we are.

I have not yet learned
how to freely love
another human being,
or this person
I call myself.

But I am beginning to love
being alive,
surrounded by life
and this universe of wonders,
and for now,
that is enough.

Love of the particular
is like a lever
which pries open the heart
at least a crack,
and let’s the light
of the universal
shine through.

Each beautiful sight,
each beautiful person,
is like a glimpse
of a greater beauty
we do not always see.

And when we love
without attachment,
the lever becomes a key,
which opens the door
to everything that can be loved,
to a universe
that is nothing but love.

Love isn’t like gold -
it’s not a treasure
to be hoarded,
or valued
for its scarcity.

It’s more like the flame
of a solitary candle,
which, if not hidden,
spreads its light
like a wildfire,
sparking new flames
in every heart
it touches.

Precious and ubiquitous,
fragile, God-given,
it is always on the verge
of sputtering out -
from our neglect,
or the urgent breath of fear;
or being fanned -
by the gentle breath
of compassion.

Our love,
like everything we do,
lives or dies
in the web of choices
we are always making.

It is who we are,
and what we do,
when we expose the light
that shines within us.