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Winter at the Inn
Inn Along the Way/Chapman Farm
Damariscotta, Maine
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Let your love be the real thing (or genuine)...
*Romans 12.9
Where there is love, there is no duty.
*Jiddu Krishnamurti. The Book of Life.
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The Sage gave a talk on the wonders and beauty of love. During the group sharing afterward, a young man spoke up, "I get sad every time you give a talk about love. I can never love with the kind of love you speak of." "Well said," the Sage replied, "and neither can I. And that's always a good place to begin again."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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The following scene is one of the most moving I have seen in a movie...
In the movie, "The Village (2004; Touchstone Pictures)," Covington is a small, nearly perfect village, except deadly beasts are said to inhabit the surrounding woodland. As long as everyone remains in the village, they will be safe.
The blind heroine, Ivy Walker, and the hero, Lucius Hunt, have declared their intent to marry. Everyone is happy for them except "the village idiot," Noah Percy. Percy visits Lucius in Lucius' home. As Lucius begins explaining different kinds of love, Noah stabs him.
Ivy discovers Lucius nearly dead. Ivy approaches her father and pleads for permission for him to let her help save Lucius, who is dying. She says, "I'm in love with him; he's in love with me. If he dies, all that is left to me would die with him." Ivy asks permission to do the unthinkable. Though blind, she wants to leave the security of the village and cross the forbidden woods. Ivy is willing to travel through the forest to enter the towns said to be full of danger. She would find there the medicine to help save her beloved, Lucius.
Ivy sets out with two male companions. The companions abandon her early and return to the village. She continues alone and makes her way to the outskirts of the village. Ivy finds the medicine and returns to the village.
Director M. Night Shyamalan has given us a scene reminiscent of the teaching on Agape love, of Divine Love, as taught in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
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We, as the Sage reminds us, begin again and again with an intent to love others and ourselves. There are no love experts. We are lovers in the making. And we are not defined by what appears to be past failures or successes in loving.
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Sometimes, we love someone to whom we cannot express love as our heart wishes. We accept that. That is to love.
Sometimes, we find the blessing of sharing love with someone receptive to our love. In such receptivity, the other reciprocates. We accept that. That is love, too.
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2023.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photograph.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
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