Love in Community

Abstract

This article is included in the JHP Special Issue “Healing Emotional Suffering Through Heartfelt Love,” guest edited by Michael Cornwall, PhD Entitled “Love in Community,” this is a first-person narrative providing illustration and description of a community or group giving heartfelt love as an element of healing. The dynamics of basic caring in a group setting, as well as the role of ceremony or ritual, are examined. Whether in traditional forms such as a church or synagogue or mosque or in more secular and varied expressions—the article describes how community functions in a uniquely powerful way as the vehicle for love’s presence. A young couple’s deep loss is used to illustrate the reciprocal nature of heartfelt love, the capacity for liturgy or ritual to be its container, and the healing available within the entirety.