Knowing life.....to love it!

"You really know only that which you first love" (Richard Rohr "The Naked Now").   I read this line about three days ago in the aforementioned book and it has impressed so much on my brain that I have even found that it has entered my dreams.  Needless to  say, I have had to think, and think, and think, about what it actually means.   It sounds at first read as if 'yea I get it' but as time goes on it takes on a very profound meaning.   For me, it has actually become more than I get it, but omg it is so true!!!!!!

When we really love something  or someone for that matter, we are open to whoever they may be and see them warts and all.   It is not the 'idea' of them that we love but them or it in itself.   My grammar may be a little off, not easy to put into words what I am thinking.   I have come to the realization that having a life threatening disease allows us to either become very open and 'love' life, or can have the opposite effect and draws us up into fear and despair, and so life is not longer lovable.   I have chosen to love life over the past ten years, not always liking my situation, but embracing the life that I have.   It is in this loving that I have come to really know what life is, and through that knowing, that death is a part of it not something foreign.   Not something to be feared and ignored, but to be understood and acknowledged and then to embrace the living part of life.  It is the freedom to accept  the moment of life that is given to me....not the part that may be taken away.

This knowledge that we must 'love' before we can 'know' is so powerful.   When we approach with negative or fearful thinking...we are too analytical, too judgemental, to controlling, and we actually miss out on loving.  We find reasons and excuses not to love. Love is not some romantic, nostalgic knowledge of what we would like our life to be...it is unconditional acceptance of what 'is' and then embracing it and all that it gives.   I wish I could pass this knowledge on to everyone, especially the young, in order that the life they have is seen as gift.  It only took me a half a century to learn this, do you think I have a chance of even teaching my daughter it, let alone anyone else.

Well, I will go now and live my life, loving it and really knowing what it means to be alive....I wish everyone a glimpse of this amazing revelation!