Romantic Love: Friendship that has Caught Fire

Fidelity: Becoming loyal, reliable, consistent.

Love: Choosing commitment, is action.

Friendship: committing to another individual who has interests and goals in common, with affection and esteem.

Romancing love is “friendship that has caught fire,” filled with romance, passion and mental, emotional, and sexual intimacy.

Consider the fiery words of Sherman Alexie from one of his famous short stories. Roman and Grace are a married Spokane Native American couple. He is standing close to her with his basketball between them, as if the ball represents the expectant infant they will soon create...

“Michael Jordan is coming back again,” he said.

“You can’t fool me,” said Grace. “I heard it. That was just a replay.”

“Yeah, but I wish he was coming back again. He should always come back.”

“Don’t let it give you any crazy ideas.”

Roman pulled the basketball away and leaned even closer to Grace. He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day.

Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love—it just happens!—but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit...

Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that...that was what was missing in most marriages: politeness, courtesy…thank-you notes to his wife for the smallest favors, did the dishes…vacuumed...

...year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.

Then he lifted the ball over his head...and pushed it toward the rim...it caught fire.
From “Saint Junior” by Sherman Alexie, Grove Press, pages 176-178, 188
--

Yes, LOVE is friendship that has caught fire.
Love grows like a glowing vineyard in the sunrise,
takes root and develops one day at a time. Love
in maturity is like fine wine, improves with age.

Love is quiet understanding and mature acceptance
of imperfection. Love gives strength and creatively
opens in new ways
to your beloved.


You are warmed by your beloved’s presence,
even when your lover is away. Miles do not separate.
You want your beloved nearer. But near or far, you
know your lover is yours, and you are your beloved's.

Love means patience and trust. Love springs up;
you and your beloved feel more whole. Love fill
the empty spaces in your hearts, leads you both
to look up, and to give out to others.

Love is
creative, compassionate, gentle, and kind,
coming from deep in the heart, essential.

Love is choosing again and again, daily to love
your beloved even in the hard times.

Love is wider
than the widest, deeper than the deepest,
closer than the closest--
a fire of chosen passion.

Anon and adapted

Heartfelt Romantic Wedding Song - "Better Today" by Coffey Anderson

11 Ways to Follow the LIGHT

Follow the LIGHT

1. Cherish the Good, the True, and the Just with all of your emotion, all of your intellect and reasoning, and all of your strength.

2. Never make some finite thing or idea or group a central ought and duty for which you harm others.

3. Be courteous and respectful in your words and thoughts. Don’t ridicule or profane what is of value and worth.

4. Take at least one day and evening a week for mindfulness, recreation, and reflection.

5. Show caring and concern for the elderly, including your own parents.

6. Protect and esteem others. Don’t kill or do violence to them in thought, word, or deed.

7. Commit to one other person for life, in an ultimate sense through intellectual, emotional, and physical union. Be steadfast and loyal.

8. Show generosity; share with other humans in need; don’t take what belongs to others.

9. Speak the truth always in caring and altruism. Be honest and forthright.

10. Simplify; be content with what is good, necessary, and enjoyable; don’t fixate on and long for what others have.

And another commandment: Care for all other humans as much as yourself including those different from you and even your enemies.
And care for other sentient creatures.


--a theistic humanistic version of Jewish ethical commandments in modern language


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Love Affair: Truth isn't a woman to be propositioned in a creed

The Love Affair

Truth is not a woman to be propositioned
In the bold demands of a harsh creed,
Treated like an object to ever mind;
Not for heaven's sake is she to be
Reasoned into compromising positions
By the forced logic of mental constructs;

She is not to be cornered or ever boxed,
Prosed short to a Procrustean degree,
Delivered in some barren decree
On Sunday morning from the patriarchal
Sharp verbal edges of a ridged pulpit’s dock.
She is no submissive wife or doctrinal concubine.

Rather Truth is a foxy lady
Hidden ever so in virgin-minded wilderness,
Light playing through the translucent leaves,
Who deeply wishes you in poesied verse
To propose, that your every cherished moment
Be a sparked endless epoch

Of tender talk, bedded conversation
Inflamed with love's pure passion
From much earnest kind-ling
In the fire place of poetic symbol,
Not dried logic and brained doctrine
But inner Hebrewed 'knowing.'

To woo this lady Truth,
Worship and kiss her
Intimately with Frenched
Intensity
Until the socks come off

And you two/too/to
Become
One
(Naked
And
Unashamed),
Full of light in
The true
Garden
Of
K
N
O
W
I
N
G.*



In the Light,

Daniel

First Pub. in The Clockwise Cat

Love Your Spouse Challenge

Love Your Spouse Challenge is a Facebook meme, where a lover posts a romantic photo of him/herself and his/her spouse.

They do this for 7 days. And, they, also, nominate 2 other individuals to consider taking the challenge, every day for the next 7 days.

Friends, family members, neighbors, acquaintances continue the meme by posting their own romantic pictures and nominating others, too.

This sure beats the current endless slug of politics and religion!

Evidently the first Challenge originated in the Philippines.



"...the Tagalog word kilig refers to the feeling of excitement due to various romantic situations..."


"...such as making first eye contact with one's crush..."

"There is no exact equivalent English term for kilig."

"Kilig is usually felt in the first phase of romance,
particularly during courtship or honeymoon..."
Skilty Labastilla
Ateneo de Manila University
Sociology and Anthropology Department
http://www.lifestylecent.com/


Oxford English Dictionary, March 2016
kilig: shudder, thrill
adjective--exhilarated by an exciting or romantic experience

Our'Angles' photo with romantic halos at the Golden Gate Bridge:

In the Romantic Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Bringing Hope, Joy, and Success to 4 Foster Kids and More

Don't miss this heart-warming story in American Girl Magazine! Finally, in the midst of so much tragic and absurd world news, here's what only two individuals can do to bring hope, joy, and success to those in need.

"My daddy and I are very different, but we’re a lot alike, too. We both love animals. We like to help others. And we were both in foster care as kids. Foster care is a system set up to care for kids when their own parents can’t. Six years ago, my brother Makai and I were in foster care for three months. During that time, we lived with three different sets of foster parents. Then we got adopted.

When Makai and I were first adopted, everything we had was stuffed into trash bags, one for each of us.

My daddy and I do lots of things together, like caring for the animals on our little farm. We have ducks, chickens, goats, and two dogs. We also work to help kids who are in foster care today.

When Makai and I were first adopted, everything we had was stuffed into trash bags, one for each of us. That made my daddy feel really bad. When he was a kid in foster care and moving from place to place, he also carried the few things he owned in a trash bag. He says it made him feel like he wasn’t worth much. He thinks kids should be treated better than that.

So my daddy started a charity to help kids in foster care feel better about themselves. We provide nice new bags and backpacks for kids to travel with as they move around."

Read the rest at
http://www.americangirl.com/explore/articles/see-how-one-family-is-making-a-difference/

American Girl, November/December 2015



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #4: The Heart of Romantic Love

Love is friendship that has caught fire.

From sparks of sharing and caring
and cherishing come great light
in the lives of 2 individuals.

And that light overflows beyond the couple,
enlightening, helping, bringing hope and goodness
to others.

And often creates new unique new little beings:-)


To use a different analogy,
Love grows like a glowing vineyard in the sunrise,
takes root and develops one day at a time.

First, the exuberant bursting forth of new love,
then the gradual increase and budding of succulent grapes.
Sensuously, phrases from the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible
express this wonder.

"Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your love is more delightful than wine." Song of Songs 1:2



Then love in maturity is like fine wine, improves with age.

Loving commitment is quiet understanding and mature acceptance
of imperfection. Love gives strength and creatively opens
in new ways to your beloved.

You are warmed by your beloved’s presence, even when your lover is away.
Miles do not separate. You want your beloved nearer. But near or far,
you know your lover is yours, and you are your beloved's.

Love means patience and trust. Love springs up; you and your beloved feel more whole.

Love fills the empty spaces in your hearts, leads you both to look up, and to give out to others, welling over with caring and compassion. Love is creative, compassionate, gentle, and kind, coming from the deep heart of God.

Love is choosing again and again, daily to love your beloved even in the hard times.

Love is wider than the widest, deeper than the deepest, closer than the closest--a fire of chosen passion.
--Anon and adapted


"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous and does not boast; love is not arrogant 5 or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; Love is not irritable or resentful; 6 Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7Love covers all, trusts all, hopes all, endures all.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love never ends."
1 Corinthians 13 Adapted, New Testament


7 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
...18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love
...let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth
1 John 4: 7-12, 18, 1 John 3:18

Next Time--Marriage as a Covenant

covenant (n.)
c.1300, from Old French covenant "agreement," originally present participle of covenir "agree, meet," from Latin convenire "come together" (see convene). Applied in Scripture to God's arrangements with man as a translation of Latin testamentum, Greek diatheke, both rendering Hebrew berith (though testament also is used for the same word in different places).
Online Etymology Dictionary

To be continued--


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox