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Larry Brickner-Wood's avatar

Aleesha, this is an incredibly powerful, compelling, well written and forceful essay of wisdom and strength. Your focus on the Love commandment is excellent. I agree with you, I find so many of us not loving ourselves very well, or at all, That has been my own exeperience and also through my work. A lack of and denial of self love seems epidemic in our culture, reinforced so often by our systems, religious and otherwise. Systems built upon and emphasizing fear, guilt, shame, denial and iour sinful natures are not loving oens at all. Sadly, too many of our religious movements put more emphasis on those than on love. Love is just a word that sounds good but rarely practiced in its full embrace.

Rabbi Hillel the Elder was a Pharisee of the reformed, more adaptible perspective, and a contemporary of Jesus. He said a similar thing when asked to explain the essence of the Torah, expanding one of the central elements of Judiasm as well. I sometimes speak of a trinity of love--God, others, ourselves, and they are practiced best when in balance and not lopsided in any one of the elements of that trinity. In that context, God can be repalced by meaning outside of ourselves for those not from or following a God tradition.

I agree with you, the intentional and marvelous acts of love and kindness are all around us, so abundant in daily life. At least I have been fortunate enough to experence that. We have a ways to go, but writing, words, practices and spirits like yours get us a whole lot closer.

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