I once believed, rather naively, the literal truth of the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, “Love your enemies.” Over time, as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that this is impossible. We cannot love our “enemies.” When we make others into the enemy, there is no room for love. The… read more
Tag Archives: love
Never Despair: Daily Metta
“Man’s nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.” ~ Gandhi, Harijan, November 1938 The 1930s were not a very hopeful time in the history of world politics, yet here we have Gandhi echoing across the years with a… read more
No Room for Hatred: Daily Metta
“My personal religion peremptorily forbids me to hate anybody.” ~ Gandhi, Young India, August 6, 1925 When the heart is full of love, there is no room for hatred. That does not mean that there is no space to resist injustice, or to say no to someone who needs to hear it—on the contrary. It… read more
Love: Daily Metta
“Love is not love which asks for a return.” ~ Gandhi, CWMG XIV, p. 402 Whether or not Gandhiji is paraphrasing Shakespeare here (“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,” Sonnet 116), the rhetoric is common to these experts on love—for such Gandhi and Shakespeare were—precisely because there is so much misunderstanding… read more
What Really Nourishes: Daily Metta
“The spinning wheel enables us to identify ourselves with crores. The millionaires imagine that money can bring them anything in the world. But it is not so.” ~ Gandhi, Harijan, October 13, 1946 Money may buy us things, but it can never buy us love. Therefore, it can never satisfy us. The spinning wheel for… read more
Immense Love: Daily Metta
“If it is allowed for some that the practice of love is possible, it is arrogance not to allow even the possibility of its practice in all the others.” ~ Gandhi, Harijan, September 26, 1936 While we never cling to them, there are certainly fruits associated with a reverential and circumspect practice of nonviolence, or… read more
Love Power: Daily Metta
“Power based on love is a thousand time more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.” ~ Gandhi, CWMG, 26:563 Nonviolence is a science. It is subject to prediction and control, like any natural force. That we understand it less well than other forces says nothing about the force itself, only… read more
Extending Love: Daily Metta
“It is no nonviolence if we merely love those who love us. It is nonviolence only when we love those who hate us.” ~ Gandhi in a letter dated December 31, 1931, from All Men Are Brothers, pg. 78 Nonviolence challenges us to cleanse our heart of all resentment, bitterness, and hatred. If we merely… read more
“Our dignity, our unity”–Daily Metta
“It turns out our dignity is closely linked to our unity.” In today’s Daily Metta, Michael tries to get us to look beyond the surface of hatred toward any particular group to the issue of hatred itself. What causes that and what can we do to challenge it, for the good of everyone? … read more
“Grow with me”–Daily Metta
December 4: “I want you also to grow with me.” –Gandhi (Mahatma, vol. 4, p. 154) I heard a song today, a freedom song, one sung in places like Selma and Birmingham in the 1960s. The singer, from Sweet Honey in the Rock, said, “I’d like to teach you a song. It will be the… read more
