All About Love

Selections from bell hooks' All About Love:

"The choice to love is the choice to connect - to find ourselves in the other." (p 93)

On page 75, bell hooks discusses the transformative power of love. She quotes Thomas Merton's essay "Love and Need", saying "Love is, in fact an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life..... Life curves upward to a peak of intensity, a high point of value and meaning, at which all its latent creative possibility go into action and the person transcends himself or herself in encounter, response, and communion with another. It is for this that we came into the world - this communion and self-transcendence. We do not become fully human until we give ourselves to each other in love." She goes on to say "The teachings about love offered by Fromm, King, and Merton differ from much of today's writing. There is always an emphasis in their work on love as an active force that should lead us into greater communion with the world. In their work, loving practice is not aimed at simply giving an individual greater life satisfaction; it is extolled as the primary way we end domination and oppression." (pp 75-76)

"Love is an action, a participatory emotion. Whether we are engaged in a process of self-love or of loving others we must move beyond the realm of feeling to actualize love. This is why it is useful to see love as a practice. When we act, we need not feel inadequate or powerless; we can trust that there are concrete steps to take on love's path. We learn to communicate, to be still and listen to the needs of our hearts, and we learn to listen to others. We learn compassion by being willing to hear the pain, as well as the joy, of those we love. The path to love is not arduous or hidden, but we must choose to take the first step." (p 165)