“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
C.S. Lewis in The Four Loves
No truer words were ever said. It’s unfortunate, but we can squirrel away our lives without truly connecting or feeling the anguish of vulnerability. It seems to be an easier path to stay in our own lane and not get involved. But getting involved and getting our hands dirty is the essence of connecting isn’t it?
Can we learn more love or it it just part of our intrinsic nature? Can new experiences edify and transform our capacity for love? Children can break your heart open because all they do is love. In teaching ballet classes many years ago, I used to watch the children dance across the floor with such joy and a pure expression of themselves. It was beautiful. It was love. It broke my heart open.
Please let me know a time when life gave you a “love punch” and I will compile them as a “list of more experiences than we realize that are love”.
Valentines are for everyone!
Photo by Ali Yahya