Love's Thorny Virtue

"What if the mightiest word is love?" asked Yale professor, Elizabeth Alexander in her Inaugural poem. We diminish the true power of love when we expect to find it only in the tender, sentimental and happy moments in life. The "mighty" quality of love that inspires and sustains us is the love that emerges undefeated out of adversity. A rose and a thorn share the same stem. According to our preferences, we welcome the gift of the rose with its beauty and fragrance. Conversely we avoid, even shun the thorn. Human preferences can blind our wiser sensibilities to what is equally contradictory and true.  The rose grows beautifully, necessarily, and unflinchingly surrounded and supported by a thorny stem. This koan from nature opens our eyes to paradox and opens our hearts to embrace opposing energies that sustain the fullness of life. Examples that bear witness to the dichotomy and fierceness in love abound. Anybody within earshot of a maternity ward knows that sounds of childbirth are not always sweet and tender. Love made visible demands endurance, patience, commitment, and a desire to bring something beautiful into the world. Sentimental love, romantic notion, are flimsy representations of love; mere tastes of a much deeper force. Not that I'm against romance and sentimentality. I admit enjoyment of romantic films and I give cards and flowers to my beloved. However, after years of tempering love in the refining fire of life, I know that love's depth and truth is not captured nor conveyed with momentary expressions of the heart. Love is the clarified perception that sees goodness in a person behind their misdeeds. Love is a bone-tired parent who works two jobs to feed their kids or maintains a constant vigil of care. Love never fails to see beauty, no matter the appearance, nor fails to be grateful no matter the measure of good. Love is the unimaginable ability to forgive the unforgiveable; the power to heal the nastiest wounds. The key to harnessing the mighty power of love, is to look for love where you least expect to find it. We need not shun the thorn that is our pain. If we close our heart to guard it from the thorn, we close the very vessel capable of delivering the Big Love we need most. The rose blossoms amidst thorns, the lily blooms out of mud, and the mightiest love flows from an open heart.