Love-Ability, preface, how to make friends by loving others

PREFACE

So you want to be loved? So do we all! To be loved is every human's greatest need. How do we know? Because in the 19th century and through about 1920, nearly 100% of babies abandoned to institutions died, not from lack of food or sanitation, but from lack of love.[1] James L. Halliday, a psychiatrist who studied psychosocial issues in medicine, concluded that "infants deprived of their accustomed maternal body contact may develop a profound depression with lack of appetite, wasting, and even marasmus [wasting away] leading to death."[2] Doctors realized that babies need to be loved, that is held, cuddled, caressed, and carried. When institutional procedures began to include loving and cuddling, as well as bathing, feeding, and changing, the abandoned infants began to thrive. A malnourished baby who is loved will fight harder to live than a well-fed but neglected infant. Older people also fight harder to live if they know they are loved. A gentle touch is vital to a dying person because it conveys love.[3] Love is the food of our souls. Humanly speaking, we need love to thrive.

Where do we find love? Not on a grocery shelf or in a catalog! Love cannot be earned, bought, or created. It just emanates naturally from another person’s heart. Are there ways to encourage love? Oh, yes, but they begin, not with the other person, but with you.

How can you compel someone to love you? People will not love you because you are witty, beautiful, talented, wealthy, intelligent, or stylish. For that matter, they will not love you because you are a bore, ugly, clumsy, poor, stupid, or sloppy either. But they can love you if you are witty or a bore, if you are beautiful or ugly, if you are talented or clumsy, wealthy or poor, intelligent or stupid, stylish or sloppy. Love has nothing to do with those traits. Love has to do with being loving. Just like chickens come from chickens and apples come from apples, so love comes from love. If you want to be loved, you have to love. Those who love others find that others love them. What could be more simple?

But love is not that easy. It is great to be loved. Being loved is like sitting down to a sumptuous dinner and enjoying every bite of it. But loving is like preparing the dinner. It takes work. It can be messy and time-consuming. And sometimes it does not get the praise that it deserves. Who can ever thank enough the chef who has spent hours preparing a terrific meal? Does the chef stop cooking because the diners are not appreciative? Not at all. He or she loves cooking. In the same way, those who “love to love” keep on loving even if nobody thanks them.

In order to be loved, you must learn how to love. We learn how to sew or to play the violin by practicing. Similarly, we learn to love by practicing loving. Learning to sew or to play the violin can be difficult. Learning to love may not easy either, especially if you have never been taught. But just as every person has some innate sense of how to make a straight seam or how to tell a pleasant sound from a screech, so every person is born with an innate sense of how to love. That is because God, who is love (see 1 Jn. 4:8)[4], made every person in his[5] own image. Love created us as loveable beings who are capable of loving. Knowing how to love comes naturally.

Consider newborns. They exude love. Even anencephalic infants, who are missing most of their brains, lie peacefully and gently in their parents' arms. They are giving and receiving love. We are born loving. Unfortunately, some people have forgotten how to love because others have rejected, ridiculed, or scorned their love through abuse, neglect, or other evil tactics. The longer evil continues, the more people forget how to love. Only others loving them can help them again learn how to love others. But it will be a long journey back.

Maybe you do not have many friends, or many close friends, or one, very special friend. Perhaps you feel invisible or neglected. You might be convinced that no one could ever love you. Or maybe you just want to be loved more or in a fuller or more proper way. On the other hand, you might feel confident that others love you, but you want to become a more loving person yourself. Whatever your reason for choosing this book, we are sure that these pages will help you become more loveable and, therefore, more joyful. “A joyful heart,” wrote Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “is the normal result of a heart burning with love.”[6]

[1] Kuhl, What Dying People Want, 113.

[2] Halliday, Psychosocial Medicine: A Study of the Sick Society, 245.

[3] Kuhl, 111-18.

[4] Biblical references are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.

[5] God is inclusive regarding gender. Scripture (Gn 1: 26-28) tells us that God made male and female, "in the image of God he created them." In other words, man and woman taken together give a clearer image of God's attributes than either sex considered singly. In determining which pronoun, if any, to apply to God in this book, the authors felt that using the pronoun “it” is unacceptable in addressing the Divine Person who God is, while using no pronoun tends to imply that God is impersonal. Therefore, this book, following traditional usage, uses the masculine pronoun for God.

[6] Mother Teresa, The Blessings of Love, back cover.

Love-Ability: Becoming Loveable by Caring for Yourself and Others

By Madeline Pecora Nugent and Julian Stead, OSB

New City Press: Hyde Park, New York, 2007

$13.95

	Love-Ability: Becoming Lovable by Caring for Yourself and Others A guide to making friends and being one - for those who know and those who want to learn Home Preface Table of Contents Classroom Use Order Information Testimonials Links Contact


Love-Ability Insight Being lovable has nothing to do with how mnay people love you. It has to do with how many people you love and how you show that love. People who show love are lovable people, but not everyone they love, loves them in return. Love is something given but it is not something we can demand or command. We can only keep on loving and forgiving and then we are lovable.	PREFACE So you want to be loved? So do we all! To be loved is every human's greatest need. How do we know? Because in the 19th century and through about 1920, nearly 100% of babies abandoned to institutions died, not from lack of food or sanitation, but from lack of love.[1] James L. Halliday, a psychiatrist who studied psychosocial issues in medicine, concluded that "infants deprived of their accustomed maternal body contact may develop a profound depression with lack of appetite, wasting, and even marasmus [wasting away] leading to death."[2] Doctors realized that babies need to be loved, that is held, cuddled, caressed, and carried. When institutional procedures began to include loving and cuddling, as well as bathing, feeding, and changing, the abandoned infants began to thrive. A malnourished baby who is loved will fight harder to live than a well-fed but neglected infant. Older people also fight harder to live if they know they are loved. A gentle touch is vital to a dying person because it conveys love.[3] Love is the food of our souls. Humanly speaking, we need love to thrive. Where do we find love? Not on a grocery shelf or in a catalog! Love cannot be earned, bought, or created. It just emanates naturally from another person’s heart. Are there ways to encourage love? Oh, yes, but they begin, not with the other person, but with you. How can you compel someone to love you? People will not love you because you are witty, beautiful, talented, wealthy, intelligent, or stylish. For that matter, they will not love you because you are a bore, ugly, clumsy, poor, stupid, or sloppy either. But they can love you if you are witty or a bore, if you are beautiful or ugly, if you are talented or clumsy, wealthy or poor, intelligent or stupid, stylish or sloppy. Love has nothing to do with those traits. Love has to do with being loving. Just like chickens come from chickens and apples come from apples, so love comes from love. If you want to be loved, you have to love. Those who love others find that others love them. What could be more simple? But love is not that easy. It is great to be loved. Being loved is like sitting down to a sumptuous dinner and enjoying every bite of it. But loving is like preparing the dinner. It takes work. It can be messy and time-consuming. And sometimes it does not get the praise that it deserves. Who can ever thank enough the chef who has spent hours preparing a terrific meal? Does the chef stop cooking because the diners are not appreciative? Not at all. He or she loves cooking. In the same way, those who “love to love” keep on loving even if nobody thanks them. In order to be loved, you must learn how to love. We learn how to sew or to play the violin by practicing. Similarly, we learn to love by practicing loving. Learning to sew or to play the violin can be difficult. Learning to love may not easy either, especially if you have never been taught. But just as every person has some innate sense of how to make a straight seam or how to tell a pleasant sound from a screech, so every person is born with an innate sense of how to love. That is because God, who is love (see 1 Jn. 4:8)[4], made every person in his[5] own image. Love created us as loveable beings who are capable of loving. Knowing how to love comes naturally. Consider newborns. They exude love. Even anencephalic infants, who are missing most of their brains, lie peacefully and gently in their parents' arms. They are giving and receiving love. We are born loving. Unfortunately, some people have forgotten how to love because others have rejected, ridiculed, or scorned their love through abuse, neglect, or other evil tactics. The longer evil continues, the more people forget how to love. Only others loving them can help them again learn how to love others. But it will be a long journey back. Maybe you do not have many friends, or many close friends, or one, very special friend. Perhaps you feel invisible or neglected. You might be convinced that no one could ever love you. Or maybe you just want to be loved more or in a fuller or more proper way. On the other hand, you might feel confident that others love you, but you want to become a more loving person yourself. Whatever your reason for choosing this book, we are sure that these pages will help you become more loveable and, therefore, more joyful. “A joyful heart,” wrote Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “is the normal result of a heart burning with love.”[6] [1] Kuhl, What Dying People Want, 113. [2] Halliday, Psychosocial Medicine: A Study of the Sick Society, 245. [3] Kuhl, 111-18. [4] Biblical references are taken from the New Revised Standard Version. [5] God is inclusive regarding gender. Scripture (Gn 1: 26-28) tells us that God made male and female, "in the image of God he created them." In other words, man and woman taken together give a clearer image of God's attributes than either sex considered singly. In determining which pronoun, if any, to apply to God in this book, the authors felt that using the pronoun “it” is unacceptable in addressing the Divine Person who God is, while using no pronoun tends to imply that God is impersonal. Therefore, this book, following traditional usage, uses the masculine pronoun for God. [6] Mother Teresa, The Blessings of Love, back cover. Love-Ability: Becoming Loveable by Caring for Yourself and Others By Madeline Pecora Nugent and Julian Stead, OSB New City Press: Hyde Park, New York, 2007 $13.95