Swimmers – MN Landscape Arboretum Sculpture Garden

Lauren Winner, who teaches at Duke Divinity School, offers an intriguing definition of love. She uses love in the sense that a plant loves a certain type of soil or kind of light. “Love” she says, “is the condition under which we flourish.”

What does love that helps others flourish look like? What does it look like in a faith community – a family -a school – a nation? How do we so embrace others in a loving community, that one not is only welcomed but brought right into the center of love?

We flourish where we are nurtured, valued, accepted and appreciated whatever our life history might be. We flourish when we can ask the questions of faith, without fear. We flourish in places where we are supported and encouraged. We flourish when we are taken seriously. We flourish in places we are respected.

May you always make room in your heart for love to grow, that when people seek you out, they will flourish in your unconditional love.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  I Corinthians 13:4-8a