Love’s Fire

Plutarch once wrote that the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

Perhaps love is much the same.

It is not something we pour into another until they are full. It is a flame we discover, kindle, and learn to tend.

For love, too, needs oxygen.

It needs patience when the flame burns low.
Truth when the smoke begins to cloud our seeing.
Laughter when life becomes too heavy.
Space enough for two people to remain themselves, even as they draw closer.

The finest love does not demand that the other become smaller so that it may burn brighter.

It gives light without blinding.
It gives warmth without possessing.
It grows without consuming the world around it.

And perhaps this is one of the quietest disciplines of loving someone: learning that a fire is not kept alive by feeding it everything in sight.

Some things must be left untouched.

Some distances must be respected.

Some silences must be allowed to breathe.

Because love is not proved by how fiercely we hold on.

Sometimes it is proved by how carefully we hold.

So, if there is a fire between two people, may it be kindled with intention, tended with patience, and fed with truth.

May it become a light they can both walk towards, not a blaze either must run from.

And if it is meant to become a shared flame, may both know how to tend it.

May our fire be kindled.
May it light, and not burn, our world.