Cemetery Reflections: Desire vs. Passionate Love

                          Cemetery Reflections:
                                     ~~Time is a limited currency. Spend it well.

Today's Thought: What is the difference between desire and passionate love?

Perhaps, passionate love for another exists when we grant that person the ability to wound us. Vulnerability to wound means that another person matters. Receiving his or her approval unleashes a rush of happiness, and rejection burns with pain.

Wounds can only happen when we need. When we dare to lay that power in another's hands. Desire, however, is one-sided. We want, but we don't need. A desire denied can disappoint, or even sting. But no wound is sliced in. We just move on to the next desire. There is no need to linger.

What is the lesson? Don't be afraid to expose yourself to wounds. And if you're with someone who cannot harm you, perhaps some vital connection has been lost. Retrace your steps and find where the emotions went astray.

Love requires other people to really matter.

Cemetery Reflections ~ Pain

Inscription:

LOUISA E.
Wife of
JAMES BURHAMS
Died
July 22, 1854
A. 25 yrs 11 ms
& 25 ds.

CEMETERY REFLECTIONS: What would the sleeping generations tell us about living? What would we go back and tell ourselves?

~Pain is the friction of life moving forward. But I don't know yet how to embrace it. Or whether we're supposed to embrace it at all.

(Featured on this stone: A beautiful rendition of weeping willow symbolism, signifying loss, sadness, and grief.)

Cemetery Reflections ~ Touch

Inscription

MARY
Wife of Samuel Harris
Died
Jan. 23, 1863.
In the 73d year
of her age.

CEMETERY REFLECTIONS: What would the sleeping generations tell us about living? What would we go back and tell ourselves?

~Don't be afraid to touch, physically and figuratively. The distance bridged will be far more vast than the space your fingers reached.