Love is more
than an emotion, greater
than a virtue. In fact, love encompasses all virtues,
                                                              and then more.

Whether romantic, affectionate, or familial,
love is a state of mind, shared in kind, and available,
should you choose to accept.

                            Love takes courage.
Love requires pride, and friendship.

Its truthfulness is not always clear, but
it cannot be deceitful.
                                         That is not love.

Not even close.

Love defies definition, resists calculation;
how much, how little, how strong, how
short-lived is the love you hold, or have?

                                                Or have had?

It is not ‘till death do you part,
not always, not surely, not really.

Love’s magnificence is never clear;
it can blind, it can grieve,
given in quantities often larger than it is received.

This is what makes it love.

You cannot keep track of the moments
where love shows its presence, but
you can savour each drop which passes to your being.

You can choose to love, or
you can be indifferent, but where love resides,
                                   there is not room for hate.

Love one another; begin there.

Everything else will fall into place.

This is love.
That is grace.

© 2019 j.g.lewis

“Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is
someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak
until there is someone there who can understand what we are
saying, in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.”
                                                                  -Alain De Botton