Its All About Love, and Not About Me

Another great (excerpt of an) interview with one of my teroes,* bell hooks. She offers the six ingredients of love, and some thoughts on pain, healing, wholeness, and growing up.

The six ingredients of love are, care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust. I found that a lot of people just felt really confused about what love is, so I said, here, take these six ingredients and as you go about your life, you can ask: the action I’m taking, does it have these six ingredients?

And another favorite quote, which fits so well with my UU sensibilities:

For many of us, whether it’s turning toward Buddhism, or like many African American people who have turned toward Yoruba, the healing is a healing into wholeness, moving away from the sense of the self as splintered and fractured and broken. But it’s not a healing into perfection. It’s not a vision of wholeness that says everything will become right with me. It’s an acceptance that says we are, at our core, essentially whole even in the midst of our flaws and our woundedness. And it’s an acceptance that includes those flaws and wounds and that includes the embrace of pain.

I am so grateful bell hooks was born, and that she writes. Thanks to my blogging friend from Brooklyn for sharing the link.

*Teroes: teacher-heroes; I’ve heard this phrase used in anti-oppression trainings, but don’t know where it came from.

Comments

One Response to “Its All About Love, and Not About Me”

Comrade Kevin on January 24th, 2008 2:27 pm

Right.

It’s about learning to love ourselves and find a sense of inner peace in spite of our inherent flaws. One can’t begin to love someone else until one finds a sense of acceptance in oneself. Spiritual growth is a process and we are all works in progress.

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