Last Sunday's gathering at The Brunswick gave visitors a comfortable space to discuss issues regarding love. Not airy-fairy hippy lurve, but real, gritty, soul-wrenching, impenetrable love - with all of its complications. Various quotes left on the tables were provocative instigators for conversation, yet some people had tangents and controversy of their own for us to really grapple with. Below are a number of quotes that proved highly engaging.
“Feelings come to us, passively; agape comes from us, actively, by our free choice. We are not responsible for our feelings-we can't help how we feel-but we are responsible for our agape or lack of it… Only a fool would command someone to feel a certain way. God commands us to love, and God is no fool.”
“Those we love are the ones who birth and sustain our very ability to desire.”
“Love itself is all in our imagination.”
“We always love ourselves: we always seek our own good."
“God cannot fall in love for the same reason water cannot get wet: it is wet.”
“Love of humanity is easy because humanity does not surprise you with inconvenient demands. You never find humanity on your doorstep, stinking and begging.”
“One misunderstanding about love is the confusion between "God is love" and "love is God."”
“You cannot be in love with love, any more than you can have faith in faith, or hope in hope, or see sight.”
“If God is not a Trinity, God is not love. For love requires three things: a lover, a beloved, and a relationship between them."
"Not all men are worthy of love."
“Love does not belong to the beholder of love, but, to the subject to which it loves.”
“Love does not want our hymns of praise or prayers of adoration. She does not want our sacrifices or seek our time. One cannot and should not even try to love love. For love always points away from herself. To honour love is to be in love, to swim in the world illuminated by her.”
To conclude our Love series, visitors also had the opportunity to fill out 'promise cheques' from our Unlucky in Love event, or to pin a tick / cross onto the figures from Unconditional in Love, with what they find desirable / undesirable in a person. It was really valuable having a slightly less-structured format on Sunday, as people were able to express openly what they had been questioning or discovering over the past few weeks.
Next up is Lent Through The Lanes, our audio visual meditative tour around 5 different locations in the lanes of Brighton. More news on this soon, the launch date is Sunday 13th of March and it'll be open for six weeks.
