Love Does Not Require Agreement

…or approval

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I’ve met very few people who intellectually dispute the value of the propositional claim that people should love one another. After all, this principle is extolled by some of the most respected figures in all of history.

• “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” -Dalai Lama
• “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” -Mother Teresa
• “We can choose to live in a world defined by love, not hate.” -Desmond Tutu
• “Where there is love there is life.” -Mahatma Gandhi
• “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And, of course, there’s the greatest Teacher of all time:

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.