Love.
You know, it’s if not the most important word, one of the most important words that exists in any language and for that very reason so regularly misused and misconstrued and misapplied and just ignored really in the name of all sorts of other constructs.
Just sitting here thinking that it has been said that love is patient, that it’s not quick to anger, it’s kind. You can look to that biblical passage from Paul in the Corinthians and isn’t it true!
If you want to say something about love that is true, it is that it’s patient. It holds things, it waits, it doesn’t seek its own in that way, it’s not consumed by wanting things its way.
It holds space for what is true really, which is beyond what the individual organism needs or wants. And as I live and get older, I see ever more clearly how that is the biggest gift that you can give or receive is if someone bears with you. You might say forgive you, but it’s really more than forgiving, it’s not a legal, it’s not a moral requirement, it’s not a legal transaction.
It’s actually just giving space in seeing you and when you do that silly thing or that bad thing or that awful thing or that self-serving thing that someone on the other side allows you your folly and doesn’t judge you and shuts you out.
The biggest gift you can give to someone is that, the biggest gift you can receive is that is to be allowed yourself the space to become whole.