Love's Beautiful Music
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4215
The sweet music of love changes everything within us and around us; it opens our hearts in a way that nothing else can. Even in the midst of life’s challenges and difficulties, love fills us with a sense of gratitude, hope, and renewal. It’s like a wonderful song that never ends.
When questioned about fame and success, a well-known actor said, “Don’t you know it is all about being able to extend love to people? Not in a big, capital-letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.”1 Indeed, it’s been said that love is more than a feeling; it’s a verb, an action. Love gives meaning to life, enlarges our hearts, and enables every other virtue—like compassion, patience, and selflessness. Life consists of so much more than money, fame, or power—and that “more” is love.
A man worked at a steel mill for almost 40 years, not because he loved steel or even the money he earned, but rather because he loved his family with all his heart. His love for them motivated him to provide for their needs, even if it meant doing work he would rather not do. Love gave purpose to his long days and inspired his positive actions and selfless concern.
Love is the essence of life. A medical doctor expressed it this way: “The key to our survival is love. When we love someone and feel loved by them, somehow along the way our suffering subsides, our deepest wounds begin healing, our hearts start to feel safe enough to be vulnerable and to open a little wider. We begin experiencing our own emotions and the feelings of those around us.”2
1 Ralph Fiennes, in Dean Ornish, Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy (1998), 169.
No comments:
Post a Comment