Sunday, October 21, 2018

Expressing and Requesting Love

Expressing love to my family today might be easier than I thought. In fact, I might do it regularly. There's a quote I've heard, though I can't now remember or find the exact quote, but it basically says that everything we say either expresses love or expresses a desire for love.

This seems unbelievable, but if you broaden your idea of love and consider the motivations behind what people say, I think the saying holds true. When people greet each other, they express love for each other. When people discuss the weather, they are either expressing love in wanting to share useful information, or they are expressing a desire for love by requesting that information. Sometimes, when people talk or yell, they just want attention. That attention is a form of love.

Even this blog is an expression of love and a desire for love. Sometimes, I express love by sharing insights that I hope will bless people's lives, and sometimes, I express a desire for love, hoping that at least some people (including God) like my blog posts.

In everything we say and do, whether we are showing kindness or whether we hope others are kind, we are either expressing or requesting love. So, in a sense, we express love to each other rather frequently, though we should still express our love explicitly by saying "I love you," because though we may express love frequently, those expressions are often subtle enough to require some interpretation and an open definition of love.

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