No Better Use for Love

You voted with your clicks.  I'm humbled by over two hundred visits and several comments this past week.  Thank you!  (And yah, it could have been the sexy title, too.)

I was beginning to feel underwhelming, you see.

No prepared theme today.  I'll see what comes out.

I'm taking this course about 'Deeper Dating'.  Actually it's called the 'Lifelong Love' course, with 'Deeper Dating's author, Ken Page.  How I got into this course with a title like this?  I followed some people I admired in. 

I'm kind like the blindfolded birthday gal playing Pin The Tail On The Donkey these days.  Round and round I spin.  Feeling my way in!

About this 'Lifelong Love' course -  One way to look at it, is to say 'nailed it'!  And this lovely period has reached its conclusion.  BooHoo.  (For those still grieving, I do NOT belittle grieving At ALL.)

Another way to look at it is to be the discoverer.  Simply tweak "Deeper Dating" into "Deeper Relating".  I've got this tail.  Now where is this rump?

Deeper Relating.  You guys know it.  It's that delicious social ease that comes with being absolutely known and absolutely loved through and through. 

Do you know, as a kid I had this idea that only extraordinary people could pin the tail on the donkey's rump?  I mean, considering we all were blindfolded, only people with this mysterious, extraordinary, extrasensory 'gift' that could nail that tail.  Then, for awhile I pouted.  I thought the winners cheated.

But then I met a whole different type of people.   You know what these people do?  You guessed it.  Once they have taken their turn and taken off their blindfold, they help the next player find that donkey's rump.

'Extra' ordinary 'gifts' and cheating have nothing to do with nailing that donkey's tail.   Unless you count teamwork as extraordinary.

So, back to this Lifelong Love Course.  We've gotten to the part called the Gift Circle.  It's where we students pick folks who know us well, and ask them to tell us what qualities they treasure in us.  The idea of Deeper Dating is that love develops through sharing our core gifts, the qualities we feel most vulnerable about.  So many of us don't recognize where our core gifts lie.  (Like being blindfolded with the tail in your hand?)  I've asked my best friend.  I'll share her reply with you, if she gives me permission.  (Ah!  It just popped into my mailbox!)  I'd like to set up a Skype session with a couple other women. 

So asking is the first half of the Gift Circle.

The other half of this Gift Circle involves telling what qualities we treasure in them. 

I've been thinking about what qualities I treasure in you. 

You have this delicious quality of attention.  Towards yourself, towards others, toward what you love doing.  It's this kind of attention that feels into others, into one's own interests and one's self. It observes with care.  All is treasured.  It laughs.  We all have foibles, so here we are.  This quality of attention is the spark that glows, not to light up the room all by itself, not to extinguish itself when it lights the next candle, but to glow along with everyone else, until the whole room is bright.

This is a good use for love -

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

- Howard Thurman