This week brings Valentine's Day, a day that for centuries celebrated romantic love. In time, largely promoted by commercial interest, the holiday expanded to include all levels of love, from classroom friendships to spiritual connections, and retaining its vague origins related to religious sacrifice. It's interesting to consider the broadening expanse of the holiday over time as culture molds and reshapes the meaning and terms of our attachments to one another. Valentine Day itself, no matter which level of love and connection is significant to us personally, shapes our human framework for understanding of, and living with, the emotion of love. That framework includes seeking love, defining relationships, and healing from hurt, as well as living with decidedly long term friendships and companionship.
Thinking of this, last week's torrential rain is still on my mind. As I sat with the continuous rain and severe weather warnings, I recalled the story of a couple who had struggled and saved money for a week's vacation to explore the Grand Teton's majestic mountains and trails in Wyoming, only to face day after day of unrelenting rain, confining them to the lodge. An elderly man stood out among vacationers congregating in the lodge, struggling to salvage some sense of enjoyment. The elder remain joyful, delighting in conversation, an occasional card game, or simply reading in the open lobby. As the week ended, the husband of the very disappointed, grumbling couple finally asked this old man, how he could possibly enjoy passing time in the storm. The elder simply responded with, "When it rains, I let it." Letting it rain with news of atmospheric rivers, mudslides, and wind disasters, while transporting grandchildren home from school to wait out more rain, was a real challenge. Letting it rain, I discovered, really is a form of healing--an exercise in faith vs. fear that sharpens our capacity to let life show the way through the storm.
"When it rains, I let it" runs parallel to letting love be what it is, and letting healing happen. This includes healing of disappointments, losses, uncertainty, betrayal, scars and broken hearts. Yes, modern psychology offers all sorts of tools for healing emotional wounds. Just like letting it rain can include a trusty new umbrella, attention to water flow, alternative power sources, and flood warnings, are all a part of letting it rain. Can we learn to trust by letting go as love runs its course, a course that includes the healing of our hearts. Hearts heal when we let them. Love finds us, when we let it. There is a naturalness that blesses us, when we let it be. (Susan Nettleton).
For more: https://hillsidesource.com/daily.../2018/6/26/loves-guidance https://high-road-artist.com/.../the-truelove-by-david.../ http://www.phys.unm.edu/.../walcott_loveafterlove.html