PEBBLE
Love is a conversion to humanity, a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives.
~Carter Heyward, shared by Karen in Oakland, CA
BOULDER
Dear Human:
You’ve got it all wrong.
You didn’t come here to master unconditional love.
That is where you came from and where you’ll return.
You came here to learn personal love.
Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love.
Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love.
Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling.
Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often.
You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are.
You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous.
And then to rise again into remembering.
But unconditional love? Stop telling that story.
Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives.
It doesn’t require modifiers.
It doesn’t require the condition of perfection.
It only asks that you show up. And do your best.
That you stay present and feel fully.
That you shine and fly and laugh and cry
and hurt and heal and fall and get back up
and play and work and live and die as YOU.
It’s enough.
It’s Plenty.
~Courtney Walsh, shared by Aubrey in Austin, TX
PONDER
Longtime Ripplers know we’ve maintained a few traditions in these weekly splashes over the last (ok, I’ll stop saying it!) many years. One of my favorites is our annual visit to the Land of Love. (Feel free to peek at our Archives of Love or peruse the Lovely Google Doc.)
I totally get why some people roll their eyes about Valentine’s Day, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s tried to rise above the commercialism and the overly sentimental stuff and seek a higher, broader view of Love.
I chose these quotes for this year because lots of us are feeling as messed up and messy as the world seems right now. And things are indeed messed up and messy. You know what else, though? Even in these hard, weird times, it is possible to fall in love with this broken world and the broken people who currently call this place Home.
It’s not only possible, it’s essential to our survival.
I even think it’s inevitable as we develop as spiritual beings living out our experience as human beings.
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. And as we fall in love with our messy selves and as we fall in love with the many messy others we encounter in our lives and as we fall in love with this whole messy world we’re living in, we’ll find it a little easier to do our part to help clean things up a bit.
Peace,
Paul