“Eros..a romantic love for your mate. It’s inevitably a little selfish. You love your lover because there is something about your lover that moves you. It may be the way he talks or the way he walks or the personality or the physical beauty or the intellectual power– but it’s always based on that there’s something that attracts you.”
One year prior to “the 9/11” that transformed all of our lives, is the wedding anniversary of my mother and her husband. Mom classified him as a silver-haired fox (translation: a good-looking catch), a dating requirement. She was absolutely stunning with nary a wrinkle on her ivory skin which enhanced her deep blue eyes, chin-length bobbed red hair, and trim figure that turned many heads.
For 30 years, Mom was a perpetually single, conservative Southern Baptist, who never opened a newspaper unless it was to cut a coupon, and who read her Bible and Norman Vincent Peal quotes daily. He was a newly single left-winged liberal who enjoyed daily New York Times crosswords, literature my mother has never heard of, travel to countries she’s has never been to nor cared to go, wine she’s always refused to drink and was debt free.
He had a sparkle in his eyes that spoke of infatuated honeymoon-ish love whenever he would look at her. He adored her. Ignoring all their differences, they married anyway. The 12 year marriage evolved into something unconventional, proving he’s a man of sticking power. His secret? It began with Eros and grew into something more.
“Philia…intimate affection between personal friends. These are people you like. It’s reciprocal love. You love because you are loved. You love the people that you like. People that you like to sit down at the table and eat dinner with. People you dial the phone and talk to. People you go out with. This is friendship.”
“Agape…is more than romantic love… more than friendship…it’s understanding. It is creative and redeeming good will toward all men. It is the love of God operating in the human heart. It is the overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. And when you rise to love on this level, you love people who don’t move you. You love those that you don’t like. You love those whose ways are distasteful to you. You love every man because God loves him.”
“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”–Mother Teresa
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