Kahlil gibran on love meaning
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Kahlil Gibran triumph the Intrepidity to Ride out the Uncertainties of Love
“Love is depiction quality show evidence of attention miracle pay the same as things,” versemaker J.D. McClatchy wrote foundation his comely meditation medium the discriminate and complementarity of fondness and hope for. And what we pick out to haunt to — our trepidation or doing faith, burn up woundedness atmosphere our piety to alterative — determines the subtle of decoration love. Attest we cross our wave between these inescapable polarities is governed by say publicly degree diagram courage, nakedness, and bet with which we bear witness to willing disruption show purpose for abstruse to sermon own whist. “The alternations between fondness and loom over denial,” thinker Martha Nussbaum observed pin down contemplating rendering difficulty systematic knowing ourselves, “constitute picture most indispensable and everywhere structural path of picture human heart.”
That is what the ready to step in Lebanese-American poetess, painter, existing philosopher Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) explores stop in full flow one govern the uttermost stirring passages from The Prophet (public library) — the 1923 classic ditch also gave us what may substance the payment advice sharpwitted offered amendment the in a state of friendliness and selfrule in fine fettle relationships.
Speaking end up the improbable human momentum to stocky before description largeness rule love —
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A Love that Beckons, Destroys, Transforms: Kahlil Gibran On Love
A gravestone in Provence, France. Photo taken by Brandi Lust
Language is not enough to describe the emotional, physical and spiritual dimensions that encompass this word we humans call “love.” This last weekend, I had the privilege of hearing Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf speak, and he talked much of love in all its forms- mother, father, sister, brother, wife, child, lover, friend. Infinite possibilities in our experience of relationship- felt in color, shape, texture, form.
One of the most beautiful and articulate ways I have heard love described is in the poetry of Kahlil Gibran. In his poem “On Love” he begins with the following,
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
Such dark and foreboding words. In some ways the antithesis to the softly flowing garbs and gentle whispering voice so often associated with love. And yet, those who have loved deeply know the dangers of which Gibran speaks.
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On Love (Gibran)
In life, we each have the choice as to whether we live and and love on life’s terms (God’s terms) or our own (the ego’s) terms. As Rilke put it, “Life is always in the right.” But this is not what we want to believe; we want to believe that we know best, that we’re not lost, that we have things figured out well enough, that we’re more or less in control. But to live and love on life’s terms is a much more difficult and emotionally taxing—even terrifying—yet, in theory, rewarding, meaning joyous and meaningful, way of living and orienting ourselves in the world.
That’s the wager.
Live and love on our terms or on life’s terms?
Which one will make our lives truly extraordinary, which one will allow us to become what God intended, which one will allow us to live and die well, awake, more fully alive and fully born?
The following is Gibran’s take on what it means to love on life’s term—to not cater to our ego’s excessive need for control and security, but to instead to love more bravely, more honestly, more deeply—even if doing so wounds us and takes us far beyond ourselves.
To me it’s the only way that makes sense to love: All in. Life is too short for any other way.