I have the privilege of thinking about what love looks like this morning, and as I consider active love, I recognize that love looks different dependent on the stage you're in.
Loving those who cannot care for themselves
In my life, there are some who cannot care for themselves. Loving them means providing the kind of care that makes them comfortable and happy. Caring for others at the most basic levels of life demands the best of us--it is humbling and often difficult to do, but when we engage in this activity we are truly humanized, and if we can perform those tasks with sensitivity, generosity and grace, we truly give our loved ones at this stage a great gift. In many ways, this kind of love is much like the symbolic act of washing feet at the Holy Thursday church services, an act that represents servant leadership and love. So to love people at this stage, love calls us to reach to be as humane, loving and caring as we can be with life's most basic acts.
Intimate relationships
Those we share the most intimate relationships with are sometimes the most overlooked and under-nurtured relationships in life. We can easily take each other for granted, and when we do that, we risk losing the relationships that are most significant and important to us. In these relationships, we always have to be respectful, caring, patient, supportive and nurturing. To love well at this stage is to be a good listener who continually seeks ways to be there in meaningful ways to those most intimate to us.
Children
To me, loving our children means helping them to live lives that are true to them--lives that make them happy and find them contributing to the greater world in meaningful ways great and small. To be observant is an important way to love at this stage--to notice who your children are, what they love, what they need and how you might help. Also it is important to be available, but not overwhelming. Available when they need or want you, but, at the same time, giving your children space to live their lives in ways that are most meaningful to the.
Friends, relatives, neighbors
As friends, relatives and neighbors, our lives are always changing in the ways we intersect, and to love each other is to be patient amongst the changing landscape of our relationships. We will be pulled by our most intimate relationships, who we are and where we are directed, and these pulls will affect the closeness of our relationships with friends, relatives and neighbors. Sometimes we may rely on each other daily and sometimes we may go days, weeks, months and even years without too much contact, but that doesn't mean we can't still be there for one another and support one another in ways that work. I have a good friend that lives miles away, but still we connect now and then in very meaningful ways. Too often, in the past, when life meant that relationships with friends, relatives and neighbors had to change, I became frustrated, worried or impatient--I didn't recognize that this was the natural course of events with relationships like this, and it is the way of these relationships to weave in and out of closeness due to so many factors. So, loving in this regard, includes patience and availability as well as flexibility and the willingness to accept the separation and change that is often part of these relationships.
Loving each other takes on all kinds of different roles and when we can make the time to think of ways to actively love one another in ways that work the best, we strengthen our relationships and provide each other with really great gifts for living life well. Onward.