Monday, January 4, 2010

growing in love

We have teachers for all sciences or almost all sciences. But the science of love isn't taught... It grows with the intelligence of the heart. Instinct stirs us to respond positively, from that tender moments of birth onwards, to the maternal affections to which we are lavished. Where there are signs of this affection, the heart opens like petals to the warming rays of the sun... it comes to bloom. That is how the first instinct of love looks like, it is even more beautiful than that, the cuddles, the sweet kisses on the forehead, the tossing of the fragile baby into the air. They stir something within, something the heart alone knows.

When we grow up, we discover that the love we received was not a fulfillment in itself but a promise,  a seed that needs nourishing and growth. We understand that the center of the world isn't the child we once were, demanding of attention and affectionate lavishing. The truth becomes different. Love presents itself with another visage, it is no longer we who matter, but the object of the love we bear in our hearts.

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Says Christ of the Gospels.


What comes foremost isn't the neighbor. It is me. Unless I love myself, unless I start treasuring who I am, I will always love everyone in the wrong way. And that is how it often has been with many relationships.

The sad thing is that some people do not even know how to love themselves. And I do not mean a petty self-love that centers on what I desire. Loving one's self is gaining the fuller awareness of who we are meant to be. Henri Nouven uses the word beloved to point to the fact that we are created by a Source of love and loved infinitely. Such an awareness calls us to claim this blessedness always and to rejoice in it.

To be human is a great gift. To nourish one's humanity is greater. To grow in his/her humanity is the greatest act of love towards oneself. It is the only way of learning to love others. For once we have discovered the value of what and who we are we will be able to offer the best of who and what we are.

5 comments:

MM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MM said...

You cannot love others if you have not truly learned to accept and love yourself first...

Love... at some point, is learned.

ROMUALD DZEMO said...

That is cool to read MM. That is how love grows... it may start blindly, or like a mere fascination towards someone, something like what we called "infatuation", but it finds its reason through a process of self-awareness and personality deepening.

fifi cain said...

Your article is just simply wonderful I like this one! You can only be happy with a relationship if you have a happy self-love for you to be able to love others and able to share this love within yourself and to make a newly bloomed relationship to continuously grow into a marvelous beauty which is not narcissism or extreme selfishness.
It is also true that a lot of people don’t know how develop self love. Knowing what you want and what makes you happy may or may not be enough depending on the kind of want that satisfies you and in which angle of your life would fill this satisfaction. There are wants that are just to satisfy one’s flesh which is temporary and self-satisfaction is different from self love. This is one of the many misconceptions of human. Self love does not deal with satisfaction of flesh but it also associate the satisfaction of one’s soul.
I am growing tremendously in loving myself and you are so right in saying that it has moved neediness out more and more.

ROMUALD DZEMO said...

Thanks for the input Fifi. I got to read that and felt happy...

welcome to the WORLD OF HAVEN VALLEY

I am not a cut different from the ordinary human who walks the street. But in my journey, I strive to understand the music that surges from the wide worlds within every individual, that which makes him/her that fragile and sacred at the same time. I have found myself sometimes looking at someone farting with thumps-up as though goading him on to sanity. Seemingly meaningless things have been things that have communicated sense to me especially during louring hours. That is what this journal is. I offer these thoughts to the world with wonted pleasure and gratitude to all that awakens the human in me.

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