Give love a go in your troubles

NO peace that is forged without love can be lasting.
Only peace founded upon fundamental principles of human goodness that we call love can truly be lasting.
Love is one of the most-recognised words in any tongue. It rolls loosely and often off every tongue. “I love you!”, the smitten lover implores of the other and the meaning is instantly understood by the other if the same love beats in the second heart as in the first.
But strip the emotion away and attempt a meaning of love and it gets complicated and complex.
Dictionary definitions return the following: “Love is an intense feeling of deep affection for someone or something.
“Something that you enjoy or like doing very much.
“Willingness to prioritise another’s well-being or happiness above your own.
“Extreme feelings of attachment, affection, and need.
“Dramatic, sudden feeling of attraction and respect.
“A fleeting emotion of care, affection, and like.
“A choice to commit to helping, respecting, and caring for another, such as in marriage or having a child.”
What is love?
From the scriptures, 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing; but rejoices with truth.”
Christ taught that “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind” (Matt. 22:36 / Deuteronomy 6:5)
His second commandment was: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22.39 / Leviticus 19.18).
Then, Christ concluded: “On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets” (Matt. 22.40).
As Christians, we understand that Christ reduced everything in the Old Testament and all his teachings contained in the New Testament into these two commandments.
Love God and Love your fellow man.
Might I add here that the second commandment can easily include love for our fellow creatures and nature.

‘When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace’ – Jimi Hendrix

Only peace established by genuine love can remove hatred which begets violence.
The longest running animosities around the world are rooted in hatred.
There is no love lost between the Israeli and the Palestinian because the animosity is borne out of hatred.
No truce or peace between the two will hold as the recent one between the Hamas militias and Israel has shown.
Ever since Jewish shepherd boy David fitted stones to his sling and smite down the towering Philistine Goliath, hatred and animosity seems to have raged in the hearts of each succeeding generation of Jew and Philistine to now.
That can be extended to Jew and Arab in the modern era.
We see this kind of animosity emerge from among tribal communities in Papua New Guinea as well. At the slightest insult or incursion, long-buried hatchets are recovered and animosities flare anew.
The slight that gives rise to gender-based violence operates along the same lines. An old argument is reignited by a new incident. A jealous spouse or friend will use each new meeting to go into a fit of jealousy.
Money issues will relight the dying embers of the last fight over finances.
Old slights are remembered at the slightest reminders of them.
The list of instances grows in each direction.
Most fights are old and well known to the neighbors, whether it is between nations, tribes or couples.
Love has no bias.
It remembers no slights. Only love-based peace has any change of lasting. In all mediations from the churches to the courts to the negotiation table, only love can truly establish a way forward and really solve any intractable problem.
Give it a try.

‘None of us has the power to make someone else love us but we all have the power to give away love, to love other people. And if we do so, we change the kind of world we live in’ – Harold S Kushner