Spiritual Sparks: Love, Giving, and Popcorn

Can you define love? We know it when we feel it ... but what makes it grow?

Welcome to Spiritual Sparks. You’re receiving this email because you signed up to receive weekly insights on spirituality. Each week, I’ll share 3 meaningful ideas, 2 thought-provoking quotes, and 1 reflective question.

“Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round,” wrote Lewis Carroll in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. True! And love makes our world go round, touching one of the soul’s greatest pleasures. This week’s topic is love: how it delights the soul, how it grows through clarity and appreciation, and how it deepens through giving.

✨3 Ideas

1. Love is a deep soul pleasure

Love is one of life’s greatest joys, celebrated in countless songs and stories.
It’s powerful enough to inspire sacrifice and life-changing choices.
Why do we crave it? Our soul recognizes love as an eternal spiritual pleasure.

Animals love by fiercely protecting their young.

Human love, though, widens; it extends to friends and the Divine.
A mother lion will die for her cubs, but she won’t bake cookies for the neighbor’s kids.

2. Love grows with clarity and appreciation

Most people can sense love but struggle to define it. Love is an emotion created within us when we recognize the good qualities and virtues of another person.

We can’t love what we don’t know. Attention awakens love.

Sometimes love is present but hidden, like yogurt smudged on our glasses.
Remove resentment and ingratitude, and love is released into the soul’s open air.

3. Love is strengthened through giving

We often think we give because we love -- but we also love because we give.
Giving plants the seeds of love in the human soul.
Parents love their children so deeply in part because they give so much for so long.

Infatuation fades but love endures, as the country song says: “Honey, I don’t care, I ain’t in love with your hair. And if it all fell out, well, I’d love you anyway.”

When comfort and self-interest are set aside, real love is free to flourish.

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📜2 Quotes

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” -- Proverbs 17:17

“Love is sharing your popcorn.” -- Charles Schulz

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❓1 Question

Who or what do you feel a deep love for ... and why?

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True love rarely arrives with fanfare. It’s cultivated through noticing more goodness, giving more freely, and loving more deeply.

Until next time,
Wishing you moments of love that make your soul smile,

Rabbi Ze'ev Smason

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