Asking the Question Today we ask what love is. Given how many people have tried to analyze the sensation, action, and essence of love, I suspect this attempt will leave us with more questions than answers, but we humans have always asked unanswerable questions. Why stop now? So what is love? There’s the welling up of tenderness in a mother’s chest when she gazes upon her child, the sensation of hormones that surge through a lover’s bloodstream, the unconditional regard of friends for one another, the reverent respect of student for teacher. But there’s also the adoring gaze of a hound for its human companion, the geese who spend their…
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Finding a Spiritual Practice that Is Right for Us
A Contemplative Spirituality When I was a child, I wanted to be a nun. Since I was a Unitarian Universalist, this didn’t seem likely. Still, I loved the idea of sitting all day and contemplating. Not that that’s what I did all the time. I ran, climbed, splashed, sang, played kick ball, and bicycled through the neighborhood. But I also daydreamed, or gazed at the brook, or listened to the sounds trees made, or read fairy tales, or wrote poetry. Not a bad life, and I wanted that part my childhood to continue, so I imagined myself cloistered away someplace beautiful, with echoing rooms, mystical stained glass windows, a stream…