FT Chronicle

Define love.

Love is blind. Love is stupid. Love hurts. Love is all that matters, faithful and forever…

These are the popular answers that fill up the top question in slumbooks.

What is love?

People keep on saying they do not want to love anymore. They are afraid to be hurt again, to be broken-hearted. They do not want to be sad, to be lonely. They do not want to have mixed emotions, to have scars. Among the given reasons, there is a long list of innumerable responses one will comply to the question, “Why don’t you love again?”

That’s all that they know. But they do not know anything about love. They do not understand what love really means.

Love. It is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, things in this world of chaos and uncertainty. It is not love that gives wound or the one that makes misery. Love is pure and clear though these words are synonymous. Love does not bring confusion. Love does not destroy you instead it makes you a better person.

It is ironic that many hate love. If you do not want to love anymore, then you do not really know what love is. It is so unfair that we blame anything to love. We, people, are the ones who stain it, who give love a bad name. love is the music of life, it is a God-given gift. To truly love is to understand it.

What is love?

To perfectly answer the question, I would like to quote Helen Steiner Rice’s poem “The Magic of Love”

Love is like magic
And it always will be.
For love still remains
Life’s sweet mystery!!
Love works in ways
That are wondrous and strange
And there’s nothing in life
That love cannot change!!
Love can transform
The most commonplace
Into beauty and splendor
And sweetness and grace.
Love is unselfish,
Understanding and kind,
For it sees with its heart
And not with its mind!!
Love is the answer
That everyone seeks…
Love is the language,
That every heart speaks.
Love can’t be bought,
It is priceless and free,
Love, like pure magic,
Is life’s sweet mystery!!

Other than this, it is not love you are feeling right now.

I have read a status update from a friend in Facebook. It says “Take my advice, because I do not take them anyway.” That line is great and fits me so I hit the “Like” button. But then, I felt that something is wrong with it, maybe there is something that lacks with it.

I can barely recall one of my friends saying that I am the “love doctor”. It’s funny to think that, after I have given advice to him about his problems. As a friend I always give such things instantly. All of them are optimistic in nature. Let me tell you why.

Love doctor. I just laughed when he said that. It seems like irony personifies me. Yes, the irony is too thick you can cut it with a knife. My love stories are a perfect plot for a tearjerker-movie.

I once cursed love. I can barely see how the butterflies in my chest turned into wasps that feasted my heart. There are times that I’m in heaven while there are times I’m in Earth. Yes, Earth, where happy-ever-after-endings never exist as one movie says. I do have won several times but they are all short-lived. I am a general who have lost in most of his battles. I am happy. I am sad. I am glad. I am angry. I feel great. I feel lost. It is enigmatic.

But then, I live everyday as if like nothing happened to me. I wear masks; I try to conceal any feeling. I am a great pretender since no one ever noticed what I’m going through. And now, I look positively when it comes to love. Like what I always keep on repeating to my friends: “You cannot blame love. It is just unfair to blame love. Love is, simply as it is, love.”

I won’t let my friends have my experiences. I don’t want them to endure the pain I once felt. I want them to feel what I have felt while I’m on the clouds. I want them to bear my smiles not my tears. I want them to be guided by the clear light not by the gloomy spark cast beneath the mist.

My advices serve as the embodiment of myself. It is me; I am sharing a part of me to my friends. Through that, they take me to their lives.

Back with my friend’s shout-out, I have established mine.

“Take my advice though I never had the chance to use them.”

STANZAS

Ryan Reyes

Jade porcelain is your beauty

Exquisite creation you are

Only your radiance

Never stops on shining

Help me, my princess

Am I falling so desperately?

Enlighten my blinded eyes

Rare goddess from up above

I am filled with awe by the sight

Miraculous, all is perfect

How I wish I can hold you

And touch your serene face

Joined are our hands

In a peaceful and warm night

Where nothing seems to interrupt

On this magic moment

Nothing but just a dream

Oh, I cannot forget that calm face of yours

Your radiant smile I could not resist

Though there are times the rain pours

Ardent adoration of mine will persist

You make me smile without any reason

And catch my breath every time I see you

Like I will be through any season

So vivid, so alive, so lively with every hue

I cannot describe what I am feeling

But I don’t care just as long as I’m glad

For this love that is so unceasing

So pure it can discern good and bad

They say “love is blind”. It may have eyes but they are shut closed and cannot see anything.

They say “love is blind.” And like the two-sided coin, we can really say that love is impaired of sight.

It is the power of love that makes two different people to find the path to choose. Love plays music in every hearts no matter what age, appearance, wealth, race, etc.

But love, as for others, does not pay attention to those who truly love, who always wait, who always sacrifice. You’ll hear how these bitter hearts curse Cupid for being not a sharpshooter. Love does not see those teary eyes and weary souls.

Maybe it is love that is not blind but we are. We’re just blinded either by passionate emotions or by dissatisfaction. By passionate feelings, I mean that because of the rush of intense emotions we are not able to weigh situations first. By dissatisfaction, I mean is the belief of someone that love does not exist at all.

Let us open our eyes if they were remained closed. How can we know what love is? By opening our eyes in enlightenment you’ll find love as a top peak but when you’re up there, the view is beautiful.

An interesting line from Will Moss I just want to share: “Love is not blind – It sees more and not less, but because it sees more it is willing to see less.”

Love may be blind, but it is not deaf. It hears you. You can hear it. Listen to your heart.

Valentine Shorties: Follow your heart.

Ever know why some say follow your heart in everything you do?

People in Aristotle’s time believed that the heart is the seat of intelligence, motion and sensation.

But what is in the heart that will make one to think that it’s been playing games on him. One can also find himself crying or regretting for following your heart. Then, there came the popular saying “Follow your brain not your heart.”

Literally, it means that the rush of emotions may blind us of knowing what is truly right for us this time. It is just that our feelings seem to overcome us making us believe on something that is not really there at all.

I think that the adage following your heart means following what your mind say. After all, anatomically speaking, our hearts do not decide but our brains do.

A great line I would like to share:

“Sometimes when almost everything is wrong, one thing is so right you would do it all again.”
– Alice Randall in Elle

Follow your heart.

Love is sweeter the second time around.

Love is like a cigar; you can light it again but will never taste quite the same.

Two differ in views about love. People differ views about love

That is the problem…

We, people, set standards in this world without even proving it.

But, love does not set standards.

A good example is the love of my aunt and uncle.

Once upon a time, there was a man who lived prosperous in a busy city. There was a poor lady who is happy inspite of the shortcomings she have in life. And that once-upon-a-time tale will grow to a happily-ever-after story…

My uncle, my mother’s younger brother, first met my aunt as their household helper. Being the most caring and sweet as she was, my aunt has the charm to make my uncle couldn’t help but to fall in love with her accidentally. Days and nights passed by and they both found their same ground. They fell in love with each other and it started a love story.

My aunt went back home to her province, far away from Manila, to finish her studies with my uncle to help with her expenses. The cold nights made my uncle longed for her warm arms. He could not resist it so there he flew to meet her again. Then, they came back and vowed their love to God.

A simple story that is so popular in television series, a perfect plot for unconditional love. A well-lived guy meets a simple woman. No one saw any flaws, any obstacles. And without the love between them, I won’t have two cousins to hang out with and a cute little princess to cuddle with.

Love has its own reason and that reason is unknown.

INSOMNIA



Restless nights now just have begun

Because of you, I cannot go to sleep

Though the whole world slumbers

My eyes are kept wide open



The sleepless nights seems to be countless

On every instant you cross to my mind

I’ve been counting all the stars and lambs

While the cool breeze whispers something



There are times of hugs and kisses

And moments you are in my embrace

But they are unreal, I am hopeless

Anticipating with every dream every night



I am resistant to the Sandman’s spell

Though moonlight spilled onto my face

Aphrodite has some other plans for me

I hope she’ll give you as my destiny



I long for the warmth of your bosom

As a shelter in the winter cold

I long for your sweet songs and lullabies

As the remedy of this insomnia



I’m not counting on what I’ve been dreaming

Though people say they might come true

Because I enjoy cherishing thoughts of you

For they are more lifelike than dreams

I saw you this morning. I saw you this afternoon. I saw you before the sun kiss his goodbye to the sea. I saw you and you look beautiful as the stars that burn their brightest lights. I never fail on taking glimpses of your serene face everyday. You never fail to make my head turn every time you pass by. Have you enchanted me? Have you put me under your spell? Am I your slave?

I know little about you. You know nothing of me. You do not know me. You do not know what I feel. You do not know what you do to me. You do not even know I’m alive. Oh, how I wish you know me and I will know you more.

It is just I am contended on looking at you. Strange but I find my feet stuck on the ground I am standing. Weird but I feel that the world stops revolving when I see you. I am lost. I am in reverie.

Do you have a partner? If ever, does he really love you? Does he really take good care of you? I wish you do not have. I wish I am in his place. I wish you look at me the way I look at you. Darling, my heart melts when you return glances. I feel like I’m the luckiest guy alive with your smile. It seems to be magical with a little bit of musical. Music keeps on repeating whenever you’re around.

Oh, I love you my baby. You give me feelings that I adore. I want to hold your hand and feel its warmth. I want to kiss your lips and feel its comfort. I want to tell you all the things I want to say. I want to give you all the things you never had. You are my everything. No one needs you more than I need you.

All of these words are not yet spoken. Because you do not even know I’m alive. And as the song goes, baby to you all I am… is the invisible man.

I found her walking in the garden of Paradise. She’s an exquisite creation, an angel indeed! She’s above all of everything I see. Among the innumerable maidens there, one beauty especially enchanted me. She gazed at me with delight as I felt a bizarre outburst. Her smile is engaging; her face is serene. She seems to emanate an air of tranquility; she possesses an ethereal ambiance. She’s painted with elegance, a piece of a Renaissance art.

My heart goes on loving her each day. The feeling grows without thinking to abate. Nightingales sing more sweetly than anywhere else. I love her with all that I have, all that I am and all that I will be. I’m going to burst; I’m flying to the gate of heavens. Glorious is the moment I’m with her, every glimpse of her is Utopia. She casts nights as she waves curtain of the velvet sky and sprinkles luminous radiance. Her smile calls the new dawn as the sun ascends in the horizon. She’s a goddess she can be, and heaven’s missing her.

But, all of these words are not yet spoken. For I am mute’ I am afraid’ I am hopeless. I do not have the courage to open up my lips, I uttered words silently. Centuries, I’ve been waiting for that right moment. I tried to write millions of poems and to sing myriads of songs. I kept this secret so deep; I have thrown it in the abyss. I’ve drowned my heart with fluvial tears; I act cold, insensitive just to conceal all sentiments.

She’s with the warmth of the arms of another. She fells like she is being cradled on his bosom. She talks everything about him, he is everything to her. Her smile becomes more radiant but I know it’s him who popped out in her mind. He always makes her heart keep a beat; he’s an anatomy of a knight in a shining armor. I wish she look at me that way, those enticing eyes looking deep into mine. I feel so envious but I must not; I feel so angry but I could not. Does she even know that I love her for a long time? When will she know this secret? I am in fear to make answers to my own questions. I’m weak.

Here I am, sitting in a stone watching her divinity as it shines vivaciously. There is a moment of blinding lightness and deafening silence. I am anticipating with every dream; I am yearning to be with her in an instant. Destiny befriended me to have her close to me. But somehow, I chose to remain hushed, and distressed. She will be my soul, she always have that enduring charm. And no matter what, she will always be my deity in my everlasting Eden.

When fear keeps you

from living to the fullest,

look to the One Who

gives fullness to life.

Agoraphobia is the fear of public places. If this condition isn’t treated, people who suffer can become paralyze by fear. Usually agoraphobic can articulate what they fear and where they fear it. Some only know a sense of serious apprehension. Aside from traditional therapy, treatment for this condition may include having a trusted companion accompany the patient on small outings.

Agoraphobia is an extreme manifestation of fear. Yet many people suffer from social anxiety and other fears to a lesser 9but no less real) degree. If fear is causing you anxiety or holding you back, know that each of us a Companion, one who goes with us wherever we go. This Companion fully understands our fears and tells us to cast all our anxieties on Him. He offers peace, rest, and grace beyond measure. All we must d is trust and lean on Him, and He will help us progress and gain courage to face the future.

The LORD is the stronghold of my life-

of whom shall I be afraid?

PSALM 27:1

Resource reading: Coffee Break Devotions: Cappuccino