OTHERS
LearningLove.com
Copyright (c) 1999 by Benjamin Devey. All
rights reserved.
A
baby begins life with a self-centered world view. With maturity a
person's outlook expands to include others. However, not everyone
matures to realize that they are not the center of attention. Each
person is at a different stage of recognizing and treating others as
equals.
Loving people are able to care about others
without expecting reciprocal feelings. True love comes from sincere
feelings and gives automatically. Giving comes naturally when we
include others as part of our world. Even though love isn't offered
conditionally, it naturally engenders a mutual response. These happy
associations can bring life's greatest joys.
True love often defies popular beliefs.
Love's opposite is not hate. The antithesis of love is selfishness,
which is the manifest inability to love. It is an emotional
immaturity that would rather receive than give. For these people,
love is a conquest to be won. It's about give and take, or grabbing
the biggest share. People are objects and possessions. Passions
become rights, rather than nurturing expressions. These childish
pretensions fall way short of the ideal of love.
Love is an actual power of heaven. But
heavenly powers only come through principles of righteous living.
Love is absent in compulsion or force. Its real power is inseparable
from the divine gift of agency. If it isn't freely given and
received, it isn't love. In heaven and on earth, power and influence
are obtained only through persuasion, long suffering, gentleness,
meekness, and genuine love.
The desire to control another person limits
one's own ability to love. Force denies love. Possessiveness creates
all kinds of wrong perspectives and twisted outcomes. The controller
believes the companion is there to meet his needs and make him happy.
A relationship becomes disposable, to be tossed out once it has
outlived its usefulness. The controller is always on the lookout for
the fatal flaw that can disqualify the candidate for love. If it
doesn't work out, it's always the other's fault. He jumps from one
failed relationship to the next, never recognizing that the problem
is internal. He hopes someday to find the right person, instead of
understanding the deep-rooted need to change the way he sees and
treats others.
A part of loving is recognizing the amazing
uniqueness of another individual. Every person is a wonderful medley
of gifts, talents, and accumulated perspectives. When we accept
others, recognizing their strengths and weakness, we love them as
they are.
True love doesn't enter the house thinking,
"After I rip out the carpets and paneling, rearrange all the walls
and cabinets and add a wing or two, it will be a nice place. "
In love, we enter a temple with reverence
and awe, seeing the design of the Maker there. Once each of us
recognizes the inadequate construction of our own house, we can be a
lot less critical of another's.
Love gives. It doesn't take. It cannot be
demanded. In giving, love is magnified, not diminished. We cannot
make anyone choose to love. But we can make a conscious choice to be
loving.