Strength-Love.

"Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars."

Someone I know recently wrote a poem, and in this poem there was a line:

"Learn to love humbly with no shame."

I believe that all of us (and by "us" I mean humanity) are secretly ashamed to love. We think in some deep part of ourselves that true love is wrong. I really believe that people think this. The one thing that seems to terrify even the most fearless of humans is being open about our feelings. Why? Why can we not openly express our emotions?
Me, being a very emotionally open person, can't comprehend this. I mean, to a certain extent.
I have a theory of why we all have this shame to love, of course.

The emotions that we're afraid to express are the ones that make us vulnerable.
When we are open about ourselves, when people see who we truly are, we're exposed. Its dangerous. Like a patch of skin peeking through armor. Our emotions are a piece of the truest part of ourselves, and revealing the truest part of ourselves is like baring our chest right in front of someone holding a huge sword.

I've discovered that this is what I think true love is.
True love is pulling back our armor, and exposing the weakest and truest pieces of ourselves to someone who is holding a sword.
True love involves trust. Believing that the person holding the sword is not going to swing upward and then down, splitting us into pain-filled shards. And sometimes... Sometimes the other person does that. And broken trust and a shattered heart can be the most painful thing a person can feel. But God-love, agape-love, true-love, will always pull their armor back again, and again, and again. True love always involves vulnerability. Because true love always involves risk. If there's no risk involved, then its not true love. At least in my, very humble opinion.

I'm not advocating blindly trusting everyone... I guess. Although that does sound sort of appealing to my idealistic side. But this is what I really mean, I think.. Just because you trust freely doesn't mean that you don't have discretion, and that you don't know when to keep things to yourself. Trusting freely doesn't mean that you spill your soul to everyone on the street. It does mean, however, that you don't hold back when you could let go. You don't hide who you are.

So put yourself out there. Give the people around you God-love, agape-love, true-love. Love people without shame. Pull back your armor and expose yourself.
Although you may get hurt sometimes, I think that you'll find that when you love without shame, when you're vulnerable with trustworthy people, you'll come back for more.
There's something quite freeing about openly being who you are. When you love without shame, you're free, and honestly-- it sort of feels like flying.

vanessa ((