Captain Corelli and what is love

Iannis: When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No... don't blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? But it is! from Captain Corelli's Mandolin

My god-daughter's wedding service had this quotation read out and I am still flying around the quotation because it has caught me like a light to a moth. For love needs to endure to the end but what is that love that endures. As I pray for my god-daughter in her marriage and remember others in their's, and others struggling, and others no longer in marriage.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails...But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7,13

late posting Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day

I made this for Valentine's Day but presented in a Chinese red packet for Chinese New Year which is in fact the Asian Lunar New Year. I started work over Christmas conceiving of the shape and design but it changed as I responded to the stone itself. Out of the two hearts, you can now see a another in the centre formed from the two. This emerged as I shaped the rough form. Mostly this happened in the 2 days before Valentine's Day. The pressure was on and yet something new emerged. There is a third heart in our relationship as God seems to constantly be in the centre drawing us closer to himself.

Almost 2 months later as I reflect how the journey has been. My absences from the city, both back home, across provinces and across province and showed me that the saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is true. I am even more sentimental and yet tonight soaking in the bath I remembered another quote. "Tis better to have loved than to not have never loved at all" from Alfred Lord Tennyson. I am glad we met whatever happens from now on. Still praying and living in the hope of a future together.