On Love
I’ve been
reading the novel Speaks The Nightbird, by Robert R. McCammon. The story is set
in the Carolinas in 1699 and centers on the trial of a woman accused of being a
witch. This wonderfully written novel is at times horrifyingly suspenseful and
at others a beautiful foray into the human psyche.
I don’t want
to give anything away, so I’ll just get to it. At one point in the book, one of
the characters ponders the notion of love.
He wonders if love is the desire to
possess someone or if it is the desire to set the object of your love free.
I closed the
book to ponder the question for myself.
I have always seen love as a desire
to free someone to their intended purpose; to help the other become more of who
they are meant to be.
I am not speaking
about setting someone free to leave their responsibilities; but setting them
free to determine what their responsibility to life actually is.
I pondered
further and began to see Freedom in five acts:
* The Freedom
to care for yourself
* The Freedom to
think for yourself
* The Freedom
to care deeply for others
* The Freedom
to allow others to be who they are
* The Freedom
to Transform
As
RuPaul and a bunch of others would say, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the
---can you love anybody else? Can I get an Amen?”
Loving myself, then, is the act of
setting myself free to love others.
I pondered the question further and
came back to the question I asked myself at the age of 8; “Why was I born?”
Yesterday, I went back to my child
self and told her the reason; “To Love and be loved.”
I sat back down
reopened the book and found the character saying that if love was about
possession then surely it was based on the insecurity of individuals.
Love is helping the
other to be free.
I Love you, Be free.
Bertice Berry, PhD.
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