Love can neither be bought nor sold. It is free. It has to be free, or it is not love. Paid for, then it is something else. Love is not recompense. Love is not a deal, nor is it a bargain. Nor does it have to be solicited.
On Earth, sometimes love seems to be what there is not plenty of. And yet there is not one heart in the world who doesn’t desire the same love as you do, and there is not one heart in the world, including yours, that does not have great love in it to give. So then, the only explanation for the appearance of unlove in the world is that love has been denied. It’s hard to believe that anyone would deny the love in his heart, and yet it is done more frequently than I would like to say or you admit.
There are teeth in your heart that close. They close when someone does not seem to love you or like you enough. They close from even the thought that someone else’s heart might clamp down on yours. The teeth bite down ahead of time as a precaution. What keeps hurt away also wards off love. It certainly stymies your own. The cutting off of your own love is a great hurt. It is far greater than any hurt anyone could assign to you. Do not dispute the love in your heart. Let your heart be a Western steer and the world the green range where it roams. Let no word discourage your heart. Your heart is meant to be courageous in the face of anything. Nothing is to dim your heart. Love is not to be squeezed from your heart in droplets like from a dry lime. Let your love be a rushing river or a waterfall.
Beloveds, do not bargain for love. Love does not deal in trades. A deal may be sealed, but love is not sealed with a handshake or a signature. Or, if it is, then it is compartmentalized. Love is free, or it is not love. Love is not an obligation. Perhaps you would do well to see love as a beautiful sunrise or sunset. The sun’s rising and shining and setting have nothing to do with you. The sun rises and sets regardless of what you do or say. The sun is sun regardless of your mood. Sun is sun in war and peace. The sun knows of no obstacles to itself.
Perhaps you say clouds obstruct the sun. But do you not know that the sun parts clouds? Perhaps you say, “What about night time?” But you know as well as I that the sun is shining somewhere, for the sun never stops giving out its light.
Your heart is a sun, and it has the divine right of the sun to shine always, independent of whatever goes on in the world. The sun of your heart is to shine brightly, never to dim. Shadows are stealthy and dim, but not the sun of your heart. Your heart is to be set out in the light of day. No umbrella over your heart. No mask. No disguise. Just pure heart shining, reveling in its own light, reveling in the giving of it.
Your heart requires nothing but to give. And so, beloveds, give your heart. Give it without quarter, without question. Your love is not a tax to be withheld. Your love is not to be counted. It is merely to be given away free the same way the sun gives its light for all regardless of anything.