- and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy -
Thomas Merton was a monk and a writer. He was born in France and eventually moved to the United States. And months ago, I read this quote by him. "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business, in fact, it is nobody's business, what we are asked to do is to love and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy." It's truly beautiful but what I've never really noticed is the end where it says that loving itself makes us worthy of love.
I would like to say that I was recently thinking about love, but I mean, it's something I think about a lot and have been thinking about for a while. But at church today the question was posed
"How do you better love yourself?"
Loving oneself is a delicate balance between, self-confidence, self-esteem, vanity, and humility. But Thomas Merton says that when we love others, we ourselves become worthy of love. Every human being has loved. Romantically, platonically, completely, unconditionally, unrequitedly, perfectly, or imperfectly....humans inherently have a great capacity to love. [This is a long and beautiful subject that I'm not going to go into completely - but if you're interested, check THIS out] But really I believe Thomas Merton. That if we can love others, we can love ourselves. We are worth loving, we are all worthwhile. And if we have applied love in our lives to others, why shouldn't we be able to apply that love to ourselves?
In a book (movie) that I love, it says, "We accept the love we think we deserve." The moment I heard this, I tried to comprehend it. I often associate it with a quote from another movie it says that "Every woman has the exact love life she wants." and then later on in the story it says "But I can't imagine that this is what you want."
I know that might seem unrelated, but in my head it makes sense. It all comes together. No person on earth knows how to love perfectly. We all have things we have to learn about love. But I think we too often forget the importance of loving ourselves. If we love others, we can love ourselves (even if it seems hard sometimes, trust me, I KNOW). And if we love ourselves, we want more love. We want to be loved right.
We are worthy of love, most certainly from others, but just as importantly, from ourselves.
