Love or Fear

Love is to fear as light is to darkness.

In the presence of love, fear disappears.

If you're dwelling in the darkness of a human upset,

what love could you be sending and to whom?

Marianne Williamson

Someone told me recently that I am deep and complex. I think they may be right and lately life has me pondering deep subjects. 

So here is my question...Is human nature one of love or survival of the fittest? I have had very brief moments in my life where all fear was wiped away and I truly sat in complete peace and love. These moments propelled me to new places emotionally, spiritually and physically that are miraculous in nature. They are the fuel that burns my ability to hope and love every day. But I am not naive and I also see what we as humans do to each other in our "natural states". Hatred, selfishness, gluttony and laziness are definitely sitting in our core selves as well. But survival is based on fear, so I believe that at our purest most primitive selves, with all negative emotion removed, we are all love. We are all one. I believe our souls are pieces of one great light/source that connects us all. But like the man made cuts in these rocks we as men carve ruts into our souls separating us from each other and the love that could unite us.

I had a very difficult conversation with someone today that left me feeling defeated and hopeless about love and connectedness. This person will always have a huge place in my heart, there is no way they couldn't. But circumstance and life has led us apart. Over time we have grown to distrust each other to the point of outright telling each other we were scared of each other today. How sad that two people could move to such extremes in life. In the midst of the conversation the negative emotions of anger, fear, distrust,stubbornness and retribution were boiling through my body. Love was there but was a weak voice in the background. The conversation ended and I just felt sad and hopeless. I chose to let it go, to let the emotions go and just put it out of my mind for the time being. But now that the boys are asleep and the house is quiet my mind drifts back and wonders what to think of it all. I sit down to go through the final text message from this person and it says:

For what it's worth, I would like to be friends. I hate where we are right now. I will pray for us. I will take a long look at everything I have said and done. I hope you can do and or want the same.

I honestly have mixed emotions about it. I still feel a twinge of manipulation, control or something I can't explain in it, but I also feel a sense of grace in the message. A sense that they still love me too and want to try to get past our fears of each other. So, I believe the answer here is to let go of the fear and just love this person. I will not ask anything in return or expect anything to change. All I can control here is myself and my behavior and I choose to take the path of love. I am not naive. Things will not be perfect, we are human and we have a history of not seeing eye to eye on many things. But at the core of it all we are united and loving them is loving myself, loving us all.