What is Love
You ask us to love,
to love each other
as you have loved us.
What does it look like
that kind of love.
Is it words
said to get what I want?
Feelings easily given
and easily taken back?
A passing fad,
loved today
forgotten tomorrow?
An emotion
wasted
on nice food,
a new tv programme,
the latest fashion?
None of those are love.
Love is sacrificial.
putting your needs before mine;
giving
without waiting for something in return:
wanting hope for you;
sharing your burdens
and your joys;
supporting you in what you do;
loving
without needing love back;
letting you be
the person you are
wonderfully created to be.
This is love,
love that will bear fruit,
that will make us strong.
Love that if each of us share,
we will receive
what we need too.
A circle of love,
hope,
peace
and life
in all it’s fulness
for all.
John 15:9-17 (CEV)
9 I have loved you, just as my Father has loved me. So remain faithful to my love for you. 10 If you obey me, I will keep loving you, just as my Father keeps loving me, because I have obeyed him.
11 I have told you this to make you as completely happy as I am. 12 Now I tell you to love each other, as I have loved you. 13 The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them. 14 And you are my friends, if you obey me.15 Servants don’t know what their master is doing, and so I don’t speak to you as my servants. I speak to you as my friends, and I have told you everything that my Father has told me.
16 You did not choose me. I chose you and sent you out to produce fruit, the kind of fruit that will last. Then my Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name. 17 So I command you to love each other.
Or in the words of Howard Jones:
Pam's Perambulation 
thank you Pam – especially for the poem. A word in season… 🙂