(Credits: This post was triggered by reading Beth Ann Chiles' post, https://itsjustlife.me/love-is/ , while under the influence of LB (Brigid) Johnson's post, which reminds us that "emotions," from the Latin emovere, ex movere, are things that move away.
Warning: Christian content.)
Love is...in the human sense...not a paper heart. I'm turned off by the "Valentines" view of love because it so often seems to distract people from the real thing. Hormones and making babies are very nice in their way and should receive their due share of love, but they're different things from love. Love is an active verb. The "feelings" and "hearts" switched off, the yap-hole shut tight, the back, legs, and hands in gear.
It's not a card he buys for me, or one it goes against my grain to buy him. It's the active listening and remembering what we've said to each other, the complete support for each other even when we don't agree, the cooking, the cleaning, and the reconciliation after any quarrel by nighttime.
It's not a token call they remember to make when their roommates do. It's the sense of values they absorb. They love their elders in the way they treat their mates and any young they produce, at the age The Nephews currently are, as much as they do in the way they treat us.
It's not a social ritual of rushing to check in at some meeting where "everyone else" won't have time to talk but will notice and wonder about anyone who's absent, or insufficiently well dressed. It's how fully we've absorbed the teachings of our Rabbi who insulted the establishment, trampled left and right on sensitive egos, fed the hungry, healed the sick, and celebrated the children.
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