Fathom if you can

Okay, I’m trying to define this thing called Love through my own experiences so if anyone doesn’t like it they have my full permission to look the other way!

In the beginning … how do you begin loving someone?  I mean where does it all start?  I believe I’ve got a clue here and I’m going to share it with you.  Ready?

Wait a minute, I’ve lost it!  Now where did that idea go?  Look at you!  Don’t cry, honey, I’m only joking!  Please smile because I’m going to make a big declaration now and I can’t do it if you’re sad.  There now, that’s better!  I’m going to tell you where love begins, brace yourself – love begins with respect!  That’s all!  That’s the big declaration!  (Somebody tell me, why do I feel deflated here?)

Respect is a big word! … is it?  Yes, in actual fact, it is!  And I shall insist upon it!  If that person in front of you is the most beautiful human being in the whole world making you praise God for such a creation, and you get to see them being cruel to a child, animal or somebody’s property, I bet you a million somethings (I don’t have money at the moment!) you’re going to think that that person is ugly – count on it!  Why?  Because you’ve lost respect for them, that’s why.  The opposite is also true.  Convinced?  Must I go on filling one page after the other with words that tell you that the smallest act of kindness and/or compassion will register in the human brain, then another, then another, until that person’s grown so big in your eyes they’ll pop whenever you see them?  Isn’t this why we love this celebrity and dislike the other one? Can I move on to the rest of it now?

Now that we’ve established that we love someone, we’d want to let them know it.  Why? Oh, I’ve already told you that – it’s a two-way street thing, Love is!  Right, but we’d also want to give something to that person we loved.  Maybe it’s our time, or our effort, and it’s not just material things we’d want to give because somehow when we love someone those material things stop making sense!  Does that tell us something about hoarding?  We keep wanting things and working hard to be able to buy them and all because we needed Love in the first place?