Tree & Reflection

Tree & Reflection
Originally uploaded by siebe.

“The language of love is the only language that we can be sure is spoken and understood by God.”
– Northrop Frye

We are nothing, if not in love. I've come to realize that without the humbleness of loving, of wanting to give because it fills your heart to see loved ones happy, of seeing the whole world in that image, everything tinted because all is a reflection of love, without that... the world is a cold place. When we have only ourselves to live for, we cannot find ourselves in the dark hours of the night.

These [alcoholism and drug addiction] aren't just physical allergies, they're obsessions of the mind and maladies of the spirit. It's a threefold disease. And if it's partly a spiritual malady, then there's a spiritual cure.
When I say spiritual, I'm not talking about chanting or reading Eastern philosophy. I'm talking about setting up the chairs at a meeting, picking up another alcoholic, and driving him across town to a meeting. That's a spiritual lifestyle, being willing to admit that you don't know everything and that you were wrong about some things. It's about making a list of all the people you've harmed, either emotionally or physically or financially, and going back and making amends. That's a spiritual lifestyle. It's not a fluffy ethereal concept.
My friend Bob is a spiritual person. He doesn't go to church and he doesn't talk about God and he doesn't go do charity events on weekends, but he'll sit and talk for hours to a guy in jail who can't stop smoking crack. That's curing Bob of his spiritual malady, because he's willing to do something that's not really for him, it's for this other guy. He's not doing it with the expectation of getting anything out of it, but as a by-product, he is.
-- Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chilli Peppers), Scar Tissue, final pages....

And when we've gone through rough times... it is easy to say 'now I need to live for me, now it is my turn'. Recklessly and blindly pursue pleasure to fill the emptiness inside. And empty it stays. I know. Going from one to the next, not even stopping to look around, so hungry...

No matter how much nutella... the bread will never taste sweet enough, until I can share it with you.