Love principles, a gift from my mother

As we honor this season of peace, light and love, I treasure the simple list of principles for love that guided my mom’s life.

My mother was an Anglican minister’s daughter. As a child, she went to church three times on Sundays. But she was no ideologue. As the oldest sister in her large family, she practiced a deeper compassion than I’ll ever learn, she faced new adventures with an open spirit, and she absolutely loved to have a silly, crazy good time. She sought peace and beauty while challenged by poverty, disappointment and insecurity.

As an adult, she found these Love Principles, and typed them out, mistakes and all, on a manual typewriter and scotch-taped them to a picutre frame — a humble presentation, but smack dab in the middle of the kitchen shelf where she could refer to them daily.

Her kids were always the first to point out how flawed Mom was, but we couldn’t get better advice than this:

Love Principles

• Receive all people as beautiful, exactly as they are.
• Provide people with opportunities to give. instead of trying t o change someone else
• Perceive problems as opportunities
• Be the change you want to see happen, instead of tryiing to change comeone else.
• Have no specific expectations, but rather abundant expectancy
• Create your own reality consciously, rather than livjng as if you had no control over your life.

We’ve been gifted with this beautiful snow and slowness and quiet, to envision and practice whatever our dreams are.