“It is good to remember that love is (also) a verb.”
— expressed by many
A great reminder indeed. Especially since, in many of the stories we hear or watch, love is presented as a thing that is either found, or that descends from upon high, or that is either there or not there and thus no different than an object, like a rock. It becomes is a passive noun.
Hence that reminder that there is another side to love, a love that is active and agency-filled.* Love is a way of being, and like all ways of being it is therefore capable of being created and brought forth in the moment, moment by moment by moment. We can be present to love and can go further to be loving.
It is a practice! And the more time we spend being loving, the richer and more resilient our relationships become, the less contempt we peddle, and the grander (and delightful and happy and…) our experience of life becomes.
* Of course, it’s not that love isn’t also a noun, and that our emotions are not involved. Love arises much easier when the right context is present, often when who we are being aligns. Not to mention the complexity of the different kinds of love, for which the English language, at least, is deficient in differentiating. There’s romantic love, familial love, friendship love, and our overarching love for humans and humanity. So the key here is to simply not forget that love is (also) a verb and to not live as though it’s only a passive noun or as though it’s only a verb. It is big and encompasses all.
Lynx Thoughts 