The Key To All That Matters

What is the key?  What is the key to myself, to one another, to those I know and those I don’t?  What is the key to any stage or phase of life and is the essence that fills the gaps in between?  What is the key to individuals as well as groups?  What is the key to friends and enemies?  What is the key to the roles I play and the stuff I offer and receive?   What is the key that we all have it, although it can be debated that this is the key which is exactly what is needed or desired?

The key I am describing is “love”.  There are multitudes of meaning for this thing called “love”.  Some say it is a decision.  Others speak of a deep-seated emotion.  Whatever it is, we all have it.  Love is where our passion stirs and our imaginations are unleashed.  I am sure of it because I am assured by it.  I can only write about something of it with hope of not diminishing or belittling it.

Love is key to many grand ideas that resulted in big business.  Love is something we fight over, lie about, beg and die for.  Love has scores of lyrics, tales, novels, and movies both fact and fiction centered on and propelled by it from beginning to end.  Step into any card aisle or look in any flower shop or listen to the radio or watch any television channel or walk through any cemetery and allow your senses to become aware of that which surrounds you.  Words about love are everywhere.  Love touches, tugs and resonates our core like nothing else can.

Love is powerful.  Love has the profound potential to change lives in a moment without notice and trickle in our hearts over a course of a lifetime.  Love is an essential primary human need that is as vital as food and water.  Love is like oxygen for the soul that we cannot grasp, contain, control, snare or gather.  Love was not invented, yet all the efforts to describe, study and scrutinize it seem to result in nothing more than an evasion that is suited for misty-eyed dreamers rather than something of substance.  Love can be as solid as the commitment it holds together or as fragile as the edge of sacrifice it calls to question.

Love is scary, but it is not manipulative.  Love can transparently rise us to unconceivable pinnacles, yet also plunge us into unthinkable depths.  Love opens opportunities to make choices.   Love is uniquely attached to our utmost pain.  True love moves beyond a simple emotion or off-the-cuff decision.  True love sacrifices beyond reasons and commits to the bond created by it for the long haul.  Any loss of love intensely hones intrinsic aspects of who we are.

Love is not limited by supply and demand.  Love has no need to be quantified using a scale or be compared to any point of reference.  Love attaches deeply and extends out through our personhood.  Not all love is the same, yet it can brush up against someone or brush off someone in entirely unexpected ways leaving tracks and remnants of goodness.  However, when someone moves their attention and aspiration to an inanimate object or task of objectification of anyone, this morphs love to what it is not.  Unconditional love may appear as unconcern when a person recognizes their support is a source of harm rather than help.  Love can come with exterior conditions or parameters with the intention of fortifying safety concerns in order to protect and strengthen true love.

True love never disappears and vanishes in thin air.  Love is key to how we were created even when the conditions were not just right.  Love is so key that feeling loved may fade into the ordinary of lifestyles or the humdrum of routine.   Nonetheless, the entirety of love is never permanently lost.

True love involves placing someone else’s interest before of our own.  Love is a commitment of life that surfaces from our humanity.  People are communal beings who collectively appreciate and yearn for mutuality.  Love can never be fairly measured through a cost/benefit examination.  Instead love is an authentic splendor that will redeem us from our greatest pain if we are willing to accept its offer.  Love can never be replaced or duplicated, but its genuine richness can heal that which is hurt, damaged or gone through an integration of remembrance, realization, release and reinvestment.

Allow me to share this quote for it says it best:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

Yes, it is true—love is everywhere.  Love lives within all of us while its appearance from time to time is absent.  Love is perpetually relevant as it creates a splash-back affect with its assortment of riches.  Love is the unique key to an ultimate fullness in the circle of life.  Love and you will be loved.  It is good.  It is true.  Believe it!