In the cold light, I live to love and adore you
Tag: love
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2016/there-will-be-time/
Jan 25 2012
is this christianity?
A two part blog post about the Mars Hill church in Seattle and Christian discipline from Matthew Paul Turner:
Part 1: Mark Driscoll’s Church Discipline Contract
Part 2: Mark Driscoll’s ‘Gospel Shame’
Do we really wonder why people don’t like church? This seems to me about as far from Jesus’ message of love as you can get.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2012/is-this-christianity/
Jan 16 2012
Steinbeck on Falling in Love
Something for all of us to remember…whether we’ve already found love or are still waiting for it to find us.
Originally posted at Brain Pickings:
“If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”
Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (1902-1968) might be best-known as the author of East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, but he was also a prolific letter-writer. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters constructs an alternative biography of the iconic author through some 850 of his most thoughtful, witty, honest, opinionated, vulnerable, and revealing letters to family, friends, his editor, and a circle of equally well-known and influential public figures.
Among his correspondence is this beautiful response to his eldest son Thom’s 1958 letter, in which the teenage boy confesses to have fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan while at boarding school. Steinbeck’s words of wisdom — tender, optimistic, timeless, infinitely sagacious — should be etched onto the heart and mind of every living, breathing human being.
New York
November 10, 1958Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
via Letters of Note
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2012/steinbeck-on-falling-in-love/
Oct 28 2011
Love
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.”
— from 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/love/
Oct 20 2011
Moon
Moon
I am so delighted
With you, because I know you
And I know you
Came down to me, answering.
I walked up hill
After you went all the way down.
I hadn’t seen too,
But I believed in you,
And I believed you were dividing three cones
Of sky down beyond
The left shoulder of the white oak
In Warnock,
Ohio, and I remember and I pray
Come down to me love and bring me
One panther of silver and one happy
Evening of snow,
And I will give you
My life, my own, and now
My beloved has come to me and we have gone walking
Below you beside the East
River in the snow, all
Three of us, leaving
Six prints of panther, kind
Woman, and happy
Man,
And I love you,
Sky full of laurels and arrows,
White shadow of cities where the scars
Of forgotten swans
Waken into feathers
And new leaves.
—James Wright
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/moon/
Oct 18 2011
Love in a Warm Room in Winter
Love in a Warm Room in Winter
The trouble with you is
You think all I want to do
Is get you into bed
And make love with you.
And that’s not true!
I was just trying to make friends.
All I wanted to do
Was get into bed
With you and make
Love with you.
Who was that little bird we saw towering upside down
This afternoon on that pine cone, on the edge of a cliff,
In the snow? Wasn’t he charming? yes, he was, now,
Now, now,
Just take it easy.
Aha!
— James Wright
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/love-in-a-warm-room-in-winter/
Aug 11 2011
Love and Intimacy (and eyeglasses)
Reposted from nevermind the bricolage:
Devendra Banhart at the Rainbow House – Director’s Cut from Oliver Peoples on Vimeo.
Oliver People’s purveyors of the finest in eyewear and trading in very cool music and aesthetics have produced a short film for their 2011 campaign featuring Devendra Banhart and his real life girlfreind, exploring ideas of love and intimacy, in the glorious setting of John Lautner’s Rainbow House. Love the song.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/love-and-intimacy-and-eyeglasses/
Jul 25 2011
Breath of Love
David Mayfield and Seth Avett perform David’s song Breath of Love backstage before a show.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/breath-of-love/
Jun 25 2011
PDX Revisited
Last weekend was my first trip back to Portland since the craziness of last November. It was a quick weekend trip, mainly to go to the Portland Timbers vs. NY Red Bulls match Sunday evening (with my friends Elizabeth and Austin). There was however the potential for sad memories, so I was a little anxious heading up to the trip. I didn’t really expect to run into her per say, just memories of her.
Its weird to think back to six months ago now though. Up until my post earlier this month, I hadn’t heard anything from her since she started cutting off all contact with me (and I asked her to just go ahead and stop talking to me at all). After that post, she sent me a short email basically saying she was glad I was doing well, and wishing me well from my medical event. I responded with an equally short email thanking her and wishing her well as well. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that exchange though. On one hand, I’m glad she still thinks about me and takes the time to read this blog. On the other, I’m a little sad that its only a one way thing. While our brief relationship burned quickly together (and then quickly out), there was a connection (at least for me) that went beyond just physical attraction. Something that resided deeper inside. Even if I never end up seeing her or speaking to her again, I don’t expect that to go away.
That’s not to say I won’t find anything like that again. Well “like that” isn’t the right thing to say. I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen (I also don’t believe you can “find that”). Plus I think each love is by nature different. I am quite happy with where Alicia and I are. We have our own deep connection that draws us to each other. It’s different, but not in a better or worse way…just different. Alicia does make me happy (at least most of the time) and that is what’s important.
The trip was good though. Alicia came along with me, and had a good time (despite accidentally leaving her regular glasses in the car at the airport..leaving her with just her sunglasses…not much help on a rainy Saturday in Portland…or at night). We hung out with my old housemate George after arriving Friday night. On Saturday, we hung out with her best friend, who drove up from Corvallis, and later had dinner with my parents. Sunday had brunch (on the breakfast side of timing) with each other, then pretty much had our own things going on the rest of the day. Alicia met up with a couple more friends and I spent the afternoon and evening watching soccer with my friends.
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/pdx-revisited/
Jun 13 2011
Hector and the Secrets of Love
Back in January, I read a book Hector and the Search for Happiness. Not long after, I saw the film Blue Valentine (Trailer). I had grand plans to write about both the book and film at the time. Certain events were a little too fresh in my head at the time, time passed, and I never wrote about the book or the film.
Hector and the Search for Happiness is part of a now series of books by the French author François Lelord. Lelord is psychiatrist who did post doctorate work at UCLA and now lives in SE Asia. In the book, Hector is a psychiatrist who is burnt out and decides to go on a global journey to discover secrets of happiness. But that’s all I’m going to say about that book for now.
The translation of the second book in the series, Hector and the Secrets of Love came out at the end of May. The book begins not long after the first one ended. Hector is happy with his work, his relationships, his love. He’s even considering getting married. Then his girlfriend’s boss invites him (and a few other leading psychiatrists) to a resort to ask them about love. For Hector, there is another task…his girlfriend’s boss wants him to find a friend and colleague that has disappeared while researching love for the pharmaceutical company Hector’s girlfriend works for.
This journey is going to be a lot more complicated than Hector’s first journey, because love, as Hector often says, is complicated.
In the spirit of the first book, over the course of the book, Hector makes numerous observations about Love. These “seedlings” are the building blocks to the five components of love (and their corresponding five components of heartache). Below the cut, I’ve put each of the 27 seedlings of love (at least until someone tells me I have to take it down). I don’t really think I disagree with any of these observations. As for the components of love and heartache…for that you’ll have to read the book yourself.
Love being such a complicated thing, this book often made me sad while reading it. But I suppose a journey to discover the secrets of love is also more prone to heartache than a journey to find the secrets of happiness.
So how is my own journey to discover the secrets of love? Well that’s its own journey…one I’m still on…I’ve been in love and lost love…and I’m still discovering how to love (both myself and someone else)…so instead of answering that question in this public space, I’ll leave you with the words of Hector at the end of his journey:
“Love is indeed complicated, difficult, sometimes painful,
but it is also the only time that our dream becomes reality…”
Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/hector-and-the-secrets-of-love/
