When you eat an apple, you want to go to the core of it. But in life, often you avoid the core. You fear the core of relationships. You dare go only so far, as if you would lose yourself in the gift of love. And so you temper truth. Love is not to be tampered with.

You shape it, or you put it on the shelf. You are afraid of it, and you back away until another time. Yet what do you wait for in the field of love? A guarantee of equal return? Giving does not wait for return. Holding does that.

Face the truth. You do love much. You do love many. So be it. Why do you deny it? Why do you skulk around love and try to pretend it away?

We are talking about love without obligation. We are talking about love just as it is.

Love is not a whimper in your heart. It is not a beleaguered thing. It is a strong clarion call. It is an elephant's trumpet that must be sounded. And you are not a whimperer of love. You are a sounder of it.

Have you thought love a quicksand that you could fall into? Have you thought that love abides in a lurking place where you will be assaulted? Or are you afraid that your love is nothingness, only a fading thought that you can put no stock in.

Giving love is not giving yourself away. It is making a statement that love exists, and therefore so do you, and so do I, the Father of love.

Either you love where you love or you abandon the truth of your heart. Of what embarrassment is it to you should your heart engage with another's?

But who should love first, you say. Who should declare it? And to whom? Is love a subject to be discussed, or must it be silent. But love is never silent. It makes itself known, even if you hide it. Love without attachment is your saving grace. You are the one who has to know about it.

Know the love that resides in your heart. Honor it. Welcome it. Do not be afraid of it. It costs you nothing.

Love is its own investment. It is not an enterprise. It is a sense of Oneness, that is what love is. Love is not losing. It is not winning. It is a statement of fact.

Declare love to yourself.

Love does not encroach. It does not steal.

It is an offering to Me.

All love is an extension of Myself. It is a golden ladder of Myself. Other Human hearts climb the ladder with you, and yet you are all bystanders to My love. You give it. You enter it. You swim in it. But it is always My love.

You have never thought that you gave yourself away with a handshake. A handshake merely acknowledges. And so a clasp of love from your heart acknowledges what already is.

Do not be ashamed to love. Do not worry that it will fall upon deaf ears. And do not make too much of it either, for love is the medium of life.

Our love connects, and My love connects you to all. You savor the same love that I give to all in the world. You come to the same table.

Love is not something you clutch to yourself. There is no lack of it. Only lack of acknowledgement.

Consider My love the Maypole, and that you bob up to it.

You are not a stranger to love. It is the only thing you know. There is nothing else to know. You are the benefactor of love. Throw it like a bouquet. It falls where it falls. You do not need it. You have it, therefore, you give it. By whatever avenue, you give it back to Me. You have leased love in My name, and you give it out. You give away nothing. You give back.