Beka’s Reviews > All About Love: New Visions > Status Update

"Consumer culture in particular encourages lies. Advertising is one of the cultural mediums that has the most sanctioned lying. Keeping people in a constant state of lack, in perpetual desire, strengthens the marketplace economy. Lovelessness is a boon to consumerism."

"In today's world we are taught to fear the truth, to believe it always hurts. We are encouraged to see honest people as naive, as potential lovers. Bombarded with cultural propaganda ready to instill in all of us the notion that lies are more important, that truth does not matter, we are all potential victims."

"Love is as love does, and it is our responsibility to give children love. When we love children we acknowledge by our every action that they are not our property, that they have rights -- that we respect and uphold their rights.
Without justice there can be no love."

"When we are loving we openly + honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, + trust.

Definitions are vital starting points for the imagination. What we cannot imagine cannot come into being. A good definition marks our starting point + lets us know where we want to end up. We move toward a desired destination, chart the journey, create a map."

"When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive.

Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care."

"Affection is only one ingredient of love.
To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients -- care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.

Learning faulty definitions of love when we are quite young makes it difficult to be loving as we grow older."

"Everywhere we learn that love is important, + yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, + in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together.
...we still hope that love will prevail."

I'd argue that money makes the list over love in why people make many decisions