All about love

O Books sent out 569 announcements of their December-release books (of which The Given Self is one) and 9 review copies. That’s the latest update from them. I ordered 25 books for myself and they arrived like a present just before Christmas. The box remains unopened under my sunroom bookshelf. I’m reading All about love by bell hooks.

All about love has a category of Sociology/Inspiration. Never seen that before. It’s terribly interesting reading about love with a feminist edge. The rhetoric feels a little old and I’m not sure if it’s because the book was written in 2000 or because it’s got an activist style where anger feels comfortable, only lightly veiled, and not opposed to love. I don’t mind it, I’m just noticing some sort of difference that I’d like to describe if not define.

I suppose I’m as fascinated as I am because I’ve been worried about being “negative” and bringing other people down (then of all words to use, my client calls me “negative” for saying his English muffins are moldy…isn’t that the way!). I’ve been reading about negative energy and how it spreads. There's real research that loneliness spreads about as fast as the common cold. Things like that.

But I’m telling you, when someone tells me they’re not too into the holiday season because they’re feeling lonely, I’m not likely to put my hand over my mouth in fear of catching the bug. I’m so thrilled someone’s being honest with me that I silently rejoice. I feel so much love. So much spaciousness. A feeling that I can breathe. Someone…thank you Lord…isn’t putting on a pretense.

How do you reconcile this research and the “common knowledge” that feeling good is better, with dark nights of the soul that bring such beauty with them? How can you not see depression as a way to God when so many have taken that path? How do you support – lovingly support – yourself or others through the hard but profound times when your weakness makes you closer to God? How do you not lose yourself in it all? These are some of the questions of The Given Self.

“Grace is given not to lead us
into another identity . . .
but to reconnect us
to the beauty of our deepest identity.”
J. Philip Newell