{"id":1173,"date":"2019-02-14T12:48:04","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T17:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2019-02-14T12:48:04","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T17:48:04","slug":"do-you-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/do-you-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Love?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today we celebrate love
\nand my first question is:
\nWho do you love?<\/p>\n

Who do I love?
\nAnd before that question is the question:
\nWhat is love?<\/p>\n

I’m going philosophical on you today.
\nThese are meant to be big questions
\nnot small ones.
\nThese are questions
\nwithout firm answers
\nexcept maybe to star-struck lovers
\nand new mothers and fathers…<\/p>\n

This week I am preaching \u00a0the Sermon on the Mount
\nnot just the beatitudes
\nbut three long chapters of teaching
\nthat includes the challenge for
\nmy interior life
\nto match my actions
\nto love those
\nwho I might otherwise
\nhate
\nto risk a kind of living
\nthat is as dangerous
\nas it is
\ndifficult.<\/p>\n

So today, I ask myself:
\nWho do I love?
\nAnd part of me answers:
\nno one.
\nAnd part of me answers:
\neveryone.<\/p>\n

The whole of me answers:
\nmy daughter, with all my heart
\nmy family, to the best of my ability
\nmy friends, who have refused to
\nabandon me.
\nBut am I that small?<\/p>\n

So I reach further back
\nand ask:
\nWhat is love?
\nIs it feeling?
\nAn intention?
\nOr is it the will toward goodness
\nfor every life?
\nIsn’t love the activity of justice?
\nThe care of and for each life
\nno matter their doctrine,
\nskin color,
\ngender orientation
\nnationality?
\nIsn’t Divine love
\nwhat propels our planet
\nthrough the cosmos
\nand\u00a0insists on recognition
\nin the most unseemly places?<\/p>\n

This day of hearts and flowers
\nlovers and dreamers
\nis also a day that invites us
\nto think bigger
\nact larger
\nopen wider
\nto the Love
\nthat both drives \u00a0planets
\nand searches out our deepest
\nsecret\u00a0places
\nto insinuate itself
\ninto our beings.<\/p>\n

So if you are buying flowers for a loved one today
\nor strewing rose petals across the bed…
\nif your heart is racing as you hold the image
\nof your beloved in your imagination
\nlet the feelings \u00a0grow
\nlet them grow big enough
\nto hold the whole world
\nin it’s embrace.
\nSo that what thrives
\ndeep within you
\ngrows the bigger question:
\n‘how will I love the world?’
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we celebrate love and my first question is: Who do you love? Who do I love? And before that question is the question: What is love? I’m going philosophical on you today. These are meant to be big questions not small ones. These are questions without firm answers except maybe to star-struck lovers and … Continue reading Do You Love?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,13,8,21,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}