Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. – Mozart
Perhaps it takes a certain courage and genius on our parts to appreciate and live out the truth of Mozart’s statement. For the world doesn’t appear to place much stock in Mozart’s comment about love. Instead, everyday energy respects money, power, brains and physical beauty. Look at the covers of America’s magazines and the headlines in the news? Where are the images of real Lovers?
If you’re seeking fame in this world, love may impede your achievement of it. For fame and love are antithetical. The great Lovers who we know about, Jesus, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, and artists like Mozart himself, did not seek fame. It simply came to them as they lived their beliefs and their gifts with passion. And these Lovers who are also famous are, of course, the exceptions…
Instead, the headlines go to movie stars and politicians; and murderers and terrorists. 
Every so often, the public will complain that the news is too sensational or too negative – too much Paris Hilton and not enough about the good news. Briefly, a news station will run a few positive stories about a camp for kids with cancer or a charity that serves victims of domestic violence. But these stories never hold center stage for long. Something in the human psyche seems to tire of stories about Love’s goodness.
The good news about this is that you can cultivate a life of Love without worrying about having to hire a press agent. The Lovers of the world need no fame. Think of the ones you know. They live their lives through daily acts of kindness. They practice compassion. They listen. And they live their faith.
In short, they are people who live Love.
It’s a pretty short list, isn’t it. And yet the list would be a lot longer if those who live Love didn’t feel they were inadequate. So often, I’ve heard Lovers bemoan the fact that they can’t do more. The Loving caregiver wants more hours in the day and more hands to do good work.
Recently, I met such a Lover at Bordeaux Hospital, a center in Nashville that cares for poor, elderly patients and the disabled, including those with Alzheimer’s. As I sat with one veteran nurse, I wondered about her life among people she serves, none of home can remember her from hour to hour.
"If you could change one thing about your work, what would it be?" I asked her. And I waited for her to tell me it would be nice if she had more help, or higher pay, or better equipment to work with.
Instead, she answered with the genius of a true Lover: "I wish I could dine with my patients. That’s what I would change. Instead, I have to feed them and then take my lunchtime elsewhere. I wish I could spend more time with the folks who need me. I just love my patients."
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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