This feature is coordinated by The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com and InterFaith Works of CNY. Follow this theme and author posted Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
We’ve established that suffering is the bridge which brings us together. Now we can find our way toward love. If I was lost, standing on a bridge called Suffering, I’d get out a map! If the map says that behind me is a town named Ignorance, and ahead of me is a town called Love, I’d start walking toward Love. You would too. We’re all suffering and Suffering is how we get to Love.
Bell Hooks, author and professor, notes that love is an action word. In her deep dive on love, Hooks studied many great philosophers, including Thomas Merton and Parker Palmer. She notes they viewed love as a verb, an action. Love is a choice, a movement, a path that we walk with others. In newer definitions of love, love is described as personal growth and self-improvement. Those interpretations, by definition, will likely not lead us toward creating community.
Dara Harper, yoga teacher of 25 years, resides in CNY with her partner and two teenagers. She also works in communications at the Central New York Community Foundation.
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