From "Love"

In discussing love, it would be well to consider the following premises:

One cannot give what he does not possess.  To give love you must possess love.
One cannot teach what he does not understand.  To teach love you must comprehend love.
One cannot know what he does not study.  to study love you must live in love.
One cannot appreciate what one does not recognize.  To recognize love you must be receptive to
     love.
One cannot have doubt about that which he wishes to trust. To trust love you must be convinced of
     love.
One cannot admit what he does not yield to.  to yield to love you must be vulnerable to love.
One cannot live what he does not dedicate himself to. To dedicate yourself to love you must be
     forever growing in love.

          --Leo Buscaglia

Photo courtesy of Jami Saunders.

The Magic of Love

Love is like magic, and it always will be.  For love still remains life's sweet mystery.  Love works in ways that are wondrous and strange.  And there's nothing in life that love cannot change!  Love can transform the most commonplace into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace.  Love is unselfish, understanding and kind, for it sees with its heart, and not with its mind.  Love is the answer that everyone sees;
Love is the language that every heart speaks.  Love can't be bought, it is priceless and free.  Love, like pure magic, is life's sweet mystery!

          --Helen Steiner Rice

Photo courtesy of Karen Kristian.

Love is Friendship Caught Fire

Love is friendship caught fire; it is quiet, mutual confidence, sharing, and forgiving.  It is loyalty through good and bad times.  It settles for less than perfection, and makes allowances for human weaknesses.  love is content with the present, hopes for the future, and does not brood over the past.  It is the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals.  If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack.  if you do not have it, no matter what else there is, it is not enough.

           --Laura Hendricks

Photo courtesy of Monica Velez, Sugar Beet Photo.

On Love

Love is a mighty power, a great and complete good.  Love alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth.  It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders all bitterness sweet and acceptable.  Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God.  Love flies, runs and leaps for joy.  it is free and unrestrained.  Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds.  Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil, attempts things beyond its strength.  Love sees nothing as impossible, for it feels able to achieve all things.  It is strange and effective, while those who lack love faint and fail.  Love is not fickle and sentimental, nor is it intent on vanities.  Like a living flame and a burning torch, it surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.

          --Thomas a Kempis

Photo courtesy of Michael Skoglund.

The Hungering Dark

Matrimony is called holy, because this brave and fateful promise of two people, to love and honor and serve each other through thick and thin, looks beyond itself to more fateful promises still, and speaks mightily of what human life at its most human and most alive and most holy must always be.  Every wedding is a dream, and every word that is spoken there means more than it says, and every gesture - the clasping of hands, the giving of rings - is rich with mystery.  And so it [is that] we hope with every person, that the love they bear one another, and the joy they take in one another, may help them grow in love for this whole world where their final joy lies.

          --Frederick Buechner

Photo courtesy of Jami Saunders.

There's no other love in the world like yours.
There's no other life like the one you will share...
As two pebbles in a pool spread ripples forever outward,
Your two lives will blend into one and widen and
grow through all the days of your love,
But each of you will still be you,

Two people, separate, original and independent,
even in your togetherness,
Just as the two flame of two candles can burn apart
from one another and yet blend their light to
brighten the same room,
You will be as one and still be two.

A wonderful adventure awaits you as you to
forward from today to build a world as wide as
your wishes and as dear as your dreams.
It will be a world where even problems can bring
you closer as you solve them together.
A world where you can live the story of your love,
a story that's never before been told.
You've already shared so much from the time
when you first met...
And your marriage is the beginning of a deeper
sharing, a wider awareness, a greater happiness,
As you gaze outward in the same direction and
look inward at the feelings that are closest to your
heart.
There's no other love in the world like yours.
There's no other life like the one you will share.
And there's no joy to compare with the kind
you've wished for today, tomorrow, and always.

Photograph courtesy of Sean Gallery.