you down with o.p.w.?

(other people's words, of course. what did you think? but i'm sorry about that song stuck in your head now.)

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung, and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entaglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." --CS Lewis, The Four Loves

"The result [of catastrophic loss] was love. We learned to love more deeply. That was especially, though not exclusively, true for me. I hesitated at first to risk loving again. There was a protective reflex in me that made me want to turn my back on everyone, even my own family. My experience taught me that loss reduces people to a state of almost total brokenness and vulnerability. I did not simply feel raw pain; I was raw pain. Consequently, I usually found myself on the receiving end of love and friendship. Eventually, I had to decide, however, to become a contributing member of the community once again, not only willing to receive but also to give love. [...] If loss increases our capacity for love, then an increased capacity for love will only make us feel greater sorrow when suffering strikes again. There is no simple solution to this dilemma. Choosing to withdraw from people and to protect the self diminishes the soul; choosing to love again even more deeply than before ensures that we will suffer again, for the choice to love requires the courage to grieve." --Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised

have i mentioned how much i love books?