Love: quotes to reflect on

"The most beautiful sight this earth affords is a man or woman so filled with love that duty is only a name, and its performance the natural outflow and expression of the love which has become the central principle of their life."

Josiah Gilbert Holland, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), pg 394

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"Love feels no burden, regards not labors, strives toward more than it attains, argues not of impossibility, since it believes that it may and can do all things."

Thomas A Kempis, German monk & mystic, The Imitation of Christ, pt 3, ch 6 (1471)

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"When one has once fully entered the realm of Love, the world--no matter how imperfect--becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for Love."

Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847)

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"They do not love that do not show their love."

William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, Scene 1

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"Love comforted like sunshine after rain."

William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

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"An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge."

John Wesley, The Works of Rev John Wesley (1830)

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----and last, but certainly not least, these verses found in the Holy Bible

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“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Matthew 22:36-40 KJV

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"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever”

I Corinthians 13: 4-8a KJV

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Blessings, Aimee

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Note: Excerpted from the following webpage, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Love. Text, on this post only, available under CC-BY-SA. If you wish to use the text please see the following links for legal terms of use: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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Photo: pieris -- reminds me of a bridal bouquet

Reflections of Love-for those I love

Dear Hubby, Family & Friends~

Love is like a walk in God's garden; the longer I'm in the garden the more I see of its beauty. Wishing you all a blessed Valentine's Day!

Love always,
Aimee

Photo: Taken at Snowbird, Utah and modified in Adobe PhotoDeluxe.

A Week of Love--meal & other plans.

This week I am trying to include a lot of heart shaped entrees and desserts; a not too difficult thing to do because I've bought a LOT of heart shaped cooking contraptions and bakeware over the years-none of them very expensive.
I also want to use a lot of red--partly because of its tie to Valentine's Day and partly because I have a lot of red items in the house already (red and various shades of red being my favorite color). Some plans so far---

• Entrees: heart shaped eggs, heart shaped meatloaf, beets cut into heart shapes (ditto red pepper slices), beef patties shaped like hearts, heart shaped 'meatballs' with pasta. Maybe individual quiches...or heart shaped pancakes.
• Desserts/Treats: frosted & painted heart shaped cookies, linzer tart cookies, mini heart shaped cakes, heart shaped, red "jiggle" jello and trifles...and on and on. Possibly Swedish fruit soup too and also "Danish dessert" which I can use as fruit soup, layer with whipped cream or pudding or use as a fruit glaze.
• Placemats: purchased some pretty but inexpensive ones in shades of burgundy and another in red with matching cloth napkins.
• Dinnerware: found a beautiful pattern in -- red-- but decided against it because it was something I really did not need but only wanted. I did buy some inexpensive, made in the USA clear glass dinner plates, mugs, glasses and trifle 'cups' though to add to some items I already had. All very adaptable to many other settings/ celebrations.
• Blooming bulbs: not in red (well unless the not-quite-bloomed yet hyacinth is red). Pretty, colorful, nice, inexpensive. Note to self--need to still pick up tulips and make some baskets with ferns.
• Valentines: already sent some 'love' cards out--to some family that live out-of-state. Bought a box of some really cute ones that look like they were created by kids (with a good message about love on them); also bought some individual cards for a few people. Am giving (and have already given) small gifts to close family members. Next year might try for homemade gifts. .
• Chocolate and more chocolate--some heart shaped, some in heart shaped boxes for my chocolate loving hubby. We have already started on them:)

Well it is getting late so ...

Blessings & night y'all! A

A Week of Love for those I love (and those who just happen by)!

My love is not perfect. In the past I've let work and other stresses, impatience, laziness, selfishness and even fear get in the way of showing love to family and friends in the way I should (and could) have. I hate to admit that, but it's true and I wish it was different. It's not that I didn't show love to those around me; it's just that I could have done it better and didn't.

But the past is gone, my shortcomings forgiven and the good news is that each new day brings with it a fresh beginning (opportunity) to be more loving to friends and family still here; and to show that love in tangible, meaningful and creative ways (more about that later).

My inspiration for this Week of Love (which I really desire to be the start of a permanent, everyday change) comes from I Corinthians 13--the so called Love Chapter.( Note: this is the King James Version of that chapter, but you can find a link to more information on this chapter and other easier to read versions of it here.)

Why do I include this chapter here? Well since God is the only One with perfect love, I thought it'd be good to see what He says about it as I seek to become more loving. Keep in mind, as you read through this well known chapter on love that the word 'charity' equates to the word "love" (agape--selfless, perfect love)

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

Blessings, A

Photo: A very modified photo of a heart shaped egg ring. actually the very same ring I used for this morning's breakfast!