Love. A word so often used, but so rarely defined. People say they love a certain store, or mac’n’cheese, or a special sports team. Worse, they may say they love you but deliberately do things that harm you.

So what is love? Of course we can barely scratch the surface in one short blog, but I just want to offer things to think about.

I’m sure you’ve seen many situations where love is misrepresented and where people are painfully confused. Here’s a working definition that may be helpful: Higher love is a desire for the person you love to have what is truly best for them, and a commitment to do your part to make that happen.

There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence, so please consider it carefully. (And, as always, I look forward to your questions and feedback! Mary.Brown@SilenceBrokenNow.org.)

Here’s something else to think about. What if love isn’t something that we do, or give? What if love is simply what we are? Stay with me here…

We believe that God is love. We believe that we are created in God’s image. Doesn’t that mean that, at our deepest core, we are also love? Of course, the core is covered with layers upon layers that hide that love. Trauma especially makes it hard to let love emerge. But we’ll talk about that more this month.

For now, can we just go with the “what if”?What if, waaay inside, each person’s core is something strong and beautiful which has not changed since we first came into existence? What if our core was never abused, never mistreated, never exploited? What if that strength and beauty is all still there?