“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” ~ Thomas Merton
Today we have two quotes that, when taken to heart, can affect not only this day but the rest of our lives.
As Helen Keller said, let's value the best and most beautiful things that can only be felt in our hearts and known by our hearts. Love, for example. Beauty. Compassion. Courage.
And, as Thomas Merton wrote, let's love people for who they are and encourage them to be fully themselves, not try to mold them into who we want them to be.
Let's love with our hearts fully open.
So be it,
Charlene
About today's photo...
Notice the heart-shaped clearing on the heart-shaped hilltop. It's visible from St. Bonaventure University, which is located in western New York, between Olean and Allegany. It's also where my husband and I met and fell in love in the late 60s. This clearing has been there since the 20s.
When my husband and I attended SBU, it was known simply as "the heart." Now it is known as "Merton's Heart" after Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and author of Seven Story Mountain who lived and worked at St. Bonaventure for a time in the early 40s.
THE ELEVENTH GIFT IS LOVE: It will grow each time you give it away. - from The Twelve Gifts of Birth
