Rising into LOVE … (03/05/17)
When we talk about falling in Love, we often say “It’s crazy’ … But don’t you see, it IS crazy — crazy in the sense that “falling in love” has absolutely nothing to do with LOVE at all. And the give-away is the word “falling” … Even though Love is the most majestic of choices — even though it is by far the most noble of deeds and the most Joy-full of experiences, we mistakenly say that it requires a “falling” … We don’t say “rising into Love” …
There is always the idea of the Fall — a dysfunctional concept that actually goes back to extremely fundamental things; to the most curious union in Judeo-Christian culture between the Fall and the Creation — between sinning and being — between being “only human” and being alive at all …
Of course, there IS a ghastly risk of falling tied to being truly alive, but it is most certainly NOT the risk to self present in any moment of “falling in love.” Rather it is the even greater risk that is known only to those who risk it all to rise into lovING — those who risk it all not FOR love, but risk it all TO Love.
You see for all of us, life itself is always an act of faith and always an act of gamble … We are always making choices based in uncertainty; always engaging acts steeped in doubt. The moment you take a single step you do so on an act of faith, because you don’t really know for certain that the ground is not going to give way under your feet. The moment you take a journey – what an act of faith — you do so with only the hope that you will indeed arrive, though that arrival is anything but guaranteed … And the same is true for any human relationship — any human interaction, really. In every one of them we give ourselves up — in every one of them we don’t know for sure whether we are going to be attacked or ridiculed or rejected or ignored … And yet quite often we leap into them anyway — After all, that is simply what humans tend to do; these are the social animals we have evolved to be.
The key, of course, to allowing those moments to bear Goodness — the key to making them worthwhile at all, is to make those leaps for others — and to do so regardless of what might happen to ourselves in return. This is the only way to live a life of any worth — the only way to know a life of any Meaning — the only way to rise into (and thereby finally come to truly know) real LOVE.
“Falling in Love” focuses on our own hopes and our own dreams and our own yearnings and our own pleasures … Rising up into LOVE tosses all those things aside and concerns itself purely & solely in the hopes & dreams & peace of the other … THAT is what it means to truly surrender — THAT is what it truly means to Care — that is what it truly means to Give — THAT is what it truly means to LOVE — and THAT is what it means to truly Live.
(~ inspired by Alan Watts)
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