Blog 384 – 08.24.2016

When I was a boy if anyone had ask me that question I could have answered it easily. “My Mama.” I loved her quite literally to distraction. She was my whole world and the greatest of my childhood fears was being without my Mama.

Like many young men that somewhat obsessive love for my Mama was transfered to a pretty young woman, several actually, usually one at a time over the course of my teen years and   adulthood. I said to each in succession, “I love you more than I have ever loved anyone else in my life.” And I meant it and really believed then that one’s capacity to love grows the more one loves.

I’d like to add here that jealousy is not love but a sick obsession that can rob you of your happiness and make life miserable for the object of your misshapened affections as well. The first recorded murder resulted from jealousy and it still happens today. Root it out of your heart before somebody gets hurt.

Who Do You Love The Most? Many say God, Jesus, Allah, or some other deity is the best way to answer that question? The humanists, atheists, communists and others have different answers – humanity, mankind, the party, etc.

I, with my admittedly skewed view, have a simple answer. I hope you will hear me out. I think the best answer to the question: “Who do you love the most?” is to raise your hand and say, “Me, I love me the most?” Before you strap me to the heresy post and light the fire hear the logic behind my view. Loving ourself has always been the root of all of our problems and not loving ourself too much but not loving ourself enough. The symptoms of this almost unniversal deficiency in self love are everywhere. Someone has said that our every act can be interpreted as an act of love or a cry for love. And since a great deal of our acting is “acting out” it shows a great lack of love?

I ask another question, “Who’s love do we want the most? Mama’s ? Daddy”s? That pretty girl’s or handsome boy’s?, God’s, Jesus’, Allah’s, or a deity to be named? I think we all in our heart of hearts know whose love and affection we crave and are missing most – our own. A few years ago I made my piece not with God (Never really had to do that because He has always loved me and I am persuaded that He always will) but with myself. Oh, what a relief it was to finally love the one person who was dying for lack of my love, the one person who is truly capable of loving me the way I need to be loved. Now I am free to see myself in God and in everone else and love them all way better than I ever could before.

And guess what? No one need ever be jealous over me or me them again because I have found the one true love of my life. I am truly, “In love.” Since I have probably already lost many of my Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Humanist, Atheist, Capitalist, and Communist friends in trying to make the case for self love let me say this love affair is a three-way consisting of Me, God, and You. I put me at the top of the list for two obvious, at least to me, reasons. First I am the one of the three who needs the most love and secondly because of my constant proximity and unique understanding of my wants, needs, and particular preferences I am the best qualified and most able to love me best.

The world needs love but so do you and only until and to the degree that I love myself can I be part of the answer instead of continuing to be part of the problem. And Jesus said, “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor (everybody)…as…you…love…yourself.” If you do not love yourself you are not only not following the plan but you are leaving yourself out of the best three-way ever imagined by God or Man.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White