The Impulse to Love

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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If somebody were to cut me into a thousand pieces, every piece of me would say that it loves. – Chris Lubbe

The Impulse to Love is Soft

The world can be hard. It can make us hard. The challenge is to stay soft in the midst of it all. Stay soft when we want to build walls. Stay soft when when we want to give up. Stay soft when we want dig in. Stay soft when we want to blow up. Stay soft when we want to walk away. When the last thing we want to do is stay, we must stay soft.

The Impulse to Love is Essential

The impulse to love lives inside all of us. It is our nature. We come in to this world needing love to survive. That need to continues throughout our lives. To be love and love others is how the world works. The essential nature of love might seem easy to forget in a world in which real love can be little more than hollow thoughts and prayers in face of violence and hate. Under all that weight, the essential nature of love can seem powerless. That is not true. The essential nature of love inside each of us is where our true power lives.

The Impulse to Love is Vulnerable

Vulnerability is at the core of the impulse to love. Safety to explore and hold and cherish is the impulse to love manifest. Seeing ourselves in one another – our deep oneness that explodes the notion of “other” into a million streams of radiant light – makes vulnerability possible. From that space, trust, understanding, and compassion can flourish. Being vulnerable when we disagree. Being vulnerable when we are hurt. Being vulnerable when we are angry. That is the test of vulnerability. That is the test of love.

The Impulse to Love is Resilient

The impulse to love is the iris that gracefully blooms in snow. The impulse to love is the coral reef that naturally forms over a shipwreck. The impulse to love is the wound that miraculously heals. That is resiliency. Resiliency is trust. Resiliency is knowing. Resiliency is faith. We are resilient beings made for storms and seasons. Resiliency is the natural order. Resiliency is love’s promise.

The Impulse to Love is Courageous

The impulse to love is a conversation between Fear and Courage. In the great back and forth that spans all situations, Fear warns, “You might get hurt. You know better than that.” Courage responds, “That is true. That risk is part of life.” Fear asks, “Why put yourself out there? You don’t have to.” Courage simply responds, “Yes I do.”

https://kitt.global/july-17-the-impulse-to-love-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/