relationships and community on Life Satisfaction

It’s been said home is the place where they have to let you in. While it’s a reach to say I’m friends with each of my family members, our relationships thrive because we share a mutual, understood res...

In 1938 a group of researchers from Harvard University set out to answer the question of what habits led to a fulfilling life. They chose a group of 268 men who for the next seventy-five years were st...

I heard about a woman who married a very demanding, hard, and unloving man. Her husband made her existence miserable by presenting her with a list of his demands and expectations… The woman’s husband ...

Sharan Merriam and Carolyn Clark, in their fine study Lifelines , effectively show that life is fundamentally about two things—our work and our relationships. And maturity is found in having the c...

Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...

Love is hunting for bigger game than happiness. Love is a union of souls. When one member of a couple suffers from Alzheimer’s, the other doesn’t just go away. Instead, as Lewis puts it, love says, “B...

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Love alone makes heavy burdens light and bears in equal balance things pleasing and displeasing. Love bears a heavy burden and does not feel it, and love makes bitter things tasteful and sweet.

"Love! The walks over soft grass, the smiles over candlelight, the arguments over everything else."

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

Tolerance is a cheap, low-grade parody of love. Tolerance is not a great virtue to aspire to. Love is much tougher and harder.

A wealthy Dutch collector was searching for a rare diamond to complete his collection. When a renowned New York dealer located the perfect stone, he invited the man to come see it in person. The Du...

Love seeketh not Itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. So sung a little Clod of Clay, Trodden with the cattle’s feet; B...

True love is a lack of desire to check one’s smartphone in another’s presence.

Most Holy Lord, we speak with eloquence, but have no love. We speak truth to power, pontificate, and smugly consider our knowledge superior to others, but display little to no charity. We give sacrifi...

I challenge those who come to me for marriage counseling this way: “If you do what I tell you to do for an entire month, I can promise you that by the end of the month, you will be in love with your m...

A gift’s value is in the way it makes and reaffirms bonds between people. It’s an expression of a relationship. This isn’t to say that the cost of a gift doesn’t matter, but it certainly isn’t the mos...

In love . What does that even mean?  “Love” is a junk drawer we dump all sorts of ideas into, just because we don’t have anywhere else to put them.  I “love” God, and I “love” fish tacos. See ...

Humility is freedom from the need to prove you are superior all the time, but egotism is a ravenous hunger in a small space—self-concerned, competitive, and distinction-hungry. Humility is infused wit...

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then, and be “safe”?

Communicating with people is often easier said than done. Take for instance this apocryphal story of the census taker who had to venture many miles down a country road to reach a cabin. As the man pul...

In love. What does that even mean? “Love” is a junk drawer we dump all sorts of ideas into, just because we don’t have anywhere else to put them. I “love” God, and I “love” fish tacos. See the probl...

A true relationship is two unperfect people refusing to give up on each other.

The final word is love.

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone.

The British actress Sybil Thorndike was married to Sir Lewis Casson another prolific actor. Their marriage was rather tumultuous at times, and after his death, she was once asked, “Did you ever think ...

If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without l...

Love cures people: the ones who receive love and the ones who give it, too.

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is ...