Embracing Woes

I heard in a sermon a few weeks ago that taught me Buddhism says the man who has five hundred loves has five hundred woes and the man with no loves has no woes. It's true. The more you love, the more woe you leave yourself open to experience. Christianity calls to love all, regardless of how much it costs us.

I wonder if it is worth it to not love in order to not feel any pain. It would be easier to not care about others to the point of changing our own lives. It would be easier to not have to feel the pain when we lose those we love, or when they change, or when we change for that matter. Itwould be simpler to not have the woes that acconmpany the loves.

The interesting part of giving up the loves because of fear of the woe is that we never get the love. We never get the incredible feelings that come along with concept of woe in love. We don't get the flying, the mystery and the chance. We shut off a lot of our hearts in order to not hurt. We shut off such a huge part of our hearts because we are afraid of what might come after that. It's not worth it at all. When we reach for love, we have to be aware that great love also comes with great sorrow. That doesn't mean we shouldn't love. It means that we should.