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What Does It Look Like To Love Someone?

What Does It Look Like To Love Someone?

Last updated on: July 1, 2015 at 11:08 am by Susan Cottrell

What Does It Look Like To Love Someone? 2015-07-01T11:08:14-05:00 Susan Cottrell

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Look at that face! Tao Porchon-Lynch is 96-years old and brought the house down with her ballroom dancing recently on America’s Got Talent. She has been an actress and model, she teaches yoga, and she only started dancing at 85.

Her joy and grace as she danced won the audience and the judges. In short, they loved her. Listening to her, you get a sense that she loved them too, indeed, that she loves all everybody she comes across.

That is the heart of this post.

I’ve been thinking about this for the past several days – the impact on our lives of hateful, condemning, judgmental comments and beliefs – let’s call it unlove. And the impact on our lives of acceptance, affirmation, grace, forgiveness, encouragement, patience, kindness – that’s love.

Love keeps us young. Love helps us recover from the deepest heartache. Love heals all wounds. Love makes the world go round. Love remains.

Love never fails.

Love pulls us through tight places and around scary places and past dark places, places unlove would take us under.

You don’t have time for unlove. It’s too hard. It takes your life away. It is toxic. Look at the harshest naysayers and you can see the years that unlove has taken away from them. Who has time for that?

We’ve all heard that the way to retain our ability to think (versus Alzheimer’s or dementia) is to keep thinking. The way to retain our ability to move (i.e., youthful vitality) is to keep moving. This beautiful woman’s face has not a single line of unlove.

The way to retain our ability to love is to continue to love. We don’t need to practice unlove, but practice love.

Over the past few days, you may have been on the receiving end of a lot of unlove. If so, don’t let it get inside you. Do what you need to do to remain in love. If you must move on from those who unlove, do so.

Another beloved and beautiful woman has a face full of love. Betty White is 93 years old, and like our dancer, she is far too busy and far too joyful for unlove.

In answer to a question about people who are LGBTQ, she said, “I don’t know how people can be so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don’t worry about other people so much.” In other words stop being unlove and just be love.

Remember?

God. Is. Love.

Unlove? God has nothing to do with it.

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