The Waver
They call him "waver." Ed Carlson has walked 200,000 miles, waving to everyone he met as an expression of his love. In Utah, a judge threatened to fine him $110 or keep him in jail for 10 days. When Carlson said, "I can do what I'm doing in jail as well as free," the judge said, "I forgive you" and set him free. While he walks, he recites: "All love and understanding fills my heart" as he inhal... posted on Feb 20, 963 reads

Kids on Love
A group of adults posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds: "What does love mean?" The answers were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. One 6-year old wrote, "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."... posted on Dec 29, 640232 reads

Songs of Love: Music as Medicine
Seven-year-old Ronald Sterling of New York City loves baseball, hot dogs, doughnuts with sprinkles and Sesame Street. This week, Ronald, who has a serious genetic disorder that affects his immune system, received a special treat. Bob McGrath of Sesame Street along with 15,000 schoolchildren recorded a song all about him at Shea Stadium. The event marked the 12,000th song produced by the Songs of L... posted on May 27, 1768 reads

Contagious Love Experiment
Josh Stieber was in middle school on 9/11. He vowed to enlist in the army after graduating high school, and by 2007, he was deployed to Baghdad. By April 2009, he had left the army, and engaged on a bike ride to spread some love: "I want to take a negative and invest it into a positive. So that's what I've set out to do and I hope that that love is contagious." Conor was a Marine patrol leader. ... posted on Nov 5, 5993 reads

Sometimes It Just Takes a Penny
In this real-life kindness story, a man inspires generosity in a homeless woman after being approached by her for money. Having just heard good news in a friend's life, he offers to buy food for her and shares his inspiration with the homeless lady: "Something nice happened to my friend recently, after a lot of struggles. When you came in, I thought that I should keep that chain of goodness going ... posted on Jun 23, 3076 reads

Love, the Most Powerful Medicine
For a brief time, hospice nurse Dean Nash is able to break down the barriers of sickness and the reality of dying through his 10-year-old Australian Shepherd, Stormy. Bringing Stormy into the Crossroads Hospice, Nash says, offers patients unconditional love -- allowing them to temporarily forget about dying and instead focus on the delight of a "ball of fur and a wet nose" to lift their spirits." ... posted on Dec 26, 6362 reads

Rocky Anna: Love Is The Only Currency
Rocky Braat is no one special. He'd tell you that himself his friends say. His emails are full of misspellings and typos. But he has given his life to the love of others. This is a guy who didn't even particularly like kids to begin with. But then he had his heart broken -- open. Today the 30-something-year-old graphic designer from Pittsburgh lives in a cement hut and has dedicated the rest of hi... posted on Dec 27, 4628 reads

Love Books? 4 Ways to Share Them
Love books? Learn how you can share this love with others with these simple and fun ideas. From sending your books on a journey to creating a tiny library in unexpected places, these ideas offer a way to promote literacy and build community.... posted on Jul 6, 27191 reads

Love's Micro Moments of Connection
Is there any scientific basis for believing that love can stretch beyond the boundaries of our intimate relationships? What do the latest developments in human biology and psychology have to say? Barbara Fredrickson is better qualified than most other people to answer these questions. A professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a leading figure in the burgeoning "positive ps... posted on Oct 17, 23423 reads

A Story of Grace & Grit
"I don't look at myself as a healer, but I do know healing when I'm in the presence of it. And it's mysterious, magical ... It's not dependent upon the action of any one person, but it arises from the conglomerative energies. It's a team effort, always. It comes about with great love, and it gives great love." Dr. Grace Dammann was a frontline AIDS physician who survived a devastating accident fi... posted on Dec 31, 27081 reads

A Father's Love & Heroism
They say a father's love knows no bounds. Yu Xukang, a single father from the Sichuan Province in China is a living example of this. He is a man who wants nothing more than for his child to have the precious gift of education. A rare disorder has twisted his son's limbs making it impossible for him to walk the 9 miles to the only school able to accommodate his disabilities. But, that's no matter ... posted on Apr 10, 45278 reads

Why Compassion In the Workplace Matters
Workplaces vary on the extent to which "companionate love" is present. According to Wharton Management professor Sigal Barsade, companionate love is shown "when colleagues who are together day in and day out, ask and care about each other's work and even non-work issues...They are careful of each other's feelings. They show compassion when things don't go well. And they also show affection and car... posted on Jun 12, 22995 reads

An Illustrated Poster For People Who Love Their Work
'Arbejdsglaede' is a wonderful Scandinavian word that literally means 'work-love' or 'work-glad'. There is no direct translation for this word in the English language, so Maptia decided to use crowdsourcing to explore its meaning. More than 200 people who love their jobs shared three words that described how they felt on a Monday morning. A beautiful poster summarizes the results, with the size of... posted on Jul 13, 0 reads

Good Night Margaret: A Love Story Against The Odds
Take a moment to enjoy this short documentary film from the New York Times entitled, "Good Night, Margaret." It is the uplifting story about Margaret "Muffi" Lavigne and Chris Plum, both of whom have muscular dystrophy. But this story focuses not on their disabilities. Instead, it focuses on something they both feel incredibly lucky to have discovered...love. As Chris so poignantly states in the f... posted on Sep 8, 19930 reads

Say It Like It Is
There is no holding back in this powerful film featuring spoken-word artist Prince Ea. His lyrics are on point, wrapping all of society's faults and failings into a tight little ball before firing it straight at us. He lays out the problems but also the solution - "real love, true love, boundless love." ... posted on Sep 15, 4169 reads

The Little Gardener: A Parable On The Power of Working with Love
"The Little Gardener" is a picture book by Emily Hughes, which is "at heart a parable of purpose -- tender assurance for anyone who has ever undertaken a labor of love against seemingly insurmountable odds and persevered through hardship, continuing to nourishing that labor until the love emanates out, becomes contagious, and draws in kindred spirits as a centripetal force of shared purpose and en... posted on Nov 19, 7410 reads

Erich Fromm on the Art of Loving
Our cultural mythology "continually casts love as something that happens to us passively and by chance, something we fall into, something that strikes us arrow-like, rather than a skill attained through the same deliberate practice as any other pursuit of human excellence. Our failure to recognize this skillfulness aspect is perhaps the primary reason why love is so intertwined with frustration. T... posted on Jan 12, 18949 reads

Love Life: An Inspiring Journey Spurred by Tragedy
It's impossible to miss Steve Fugate's message when you catch sight of him, an older man pulling a cart of water and supplies. The message emblazoned in big red letters on the sign he carries is simple: "LOVE LIFE." For the last decade and a half 67-year-old Fugate has been walking across America spreading that message town-by-town in every state on the mainland. His mission? "To mend the broken h... posted on Jan 28, 0 reads

We Save What We Love: Gordon Hempton
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton is in love with nature's music -- sounds and silences he says that have either changed or vanished in the three decades he has been recording them. Bird songs, dolphin clicks, and insect chirps are all sounds of communication. If those sounds are drowned out by noise pollution, creatures can't hear each other. The results can be devastating. If danger warnings, ma... posted on Aug 12, 18060 reads

Can Love Stories Change the World?
Deep within us all lies a tender heart. A heart that's been wounded, heroic, or generous. That guides us with a whisper, or drives us like a sergeant. No matter who we are, where we live, or what we've done, we all have stories with our hearts as protagonist. Love stories. Matt Hopwood believes these powerfully personal, emotive narratives can be transformational for both individuals and communiti... posted on Jan 14, 13457 reads

Walking the Path of Love
In 2011, Matt Hopwood set forth on a journey through the United Kingdom and beyond to practice heart-led activism and compassion. Seeing love as the source of human connection and genuine social action, Hopwood listened to and shared as many love stories as he could. The experience ended up being incredibly meaningful to him not just because of the moving stories that came out of it but because of... posted on Mar 30, 0 reads

The Love You Seek
Imagine if you loved yourself fully, with the same compassion and tenderness you reserved for others. What would this look like? What would it mean? Self-love is a gift we can bestow upon ourselves each day. "As much as we say I love you to another, we can say it to ourselves. We can say these three words frequently, and we can say them with the reverence for which they are meant." In this moving ... posted on Apr 5, 39894 reads

9/11 Brought Them Together. They've Been Spreading Love Since
On a day when division and hate became tangible on a large scale in America, three minsters from different religions were moved by their faith to make peace. 9/11 marked a violent awakening of hate for some, but for Rabbi Ted Falcon of Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue, Reverend Don Mackenzie, a minister and head of staff at the University Congregational United Church of Christ, and Jamal Rahman, a M... posted on Oct 13, 6053 reads

Who is Mother?
Matt Hopwood is a writer, storyteller and founder of A Human Love Story. He has traveled widely to gather peoples experiences of love and connection. In 2018 after the death of his beloved grandmother - he wanted to explore the role of mother in our lives and communities. Matt eventually grew the awareness of the sense of Mother in himself. He shares with us his yearning to nurture, the longing to... posted on May 14, 5860 reads

The Religious Value of the Unknown
In an age when the fate of the world is unknown, George Prochnik makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. Restoring a sense of the unknown requires unlearning, calling into question our way of life. In uncertainty, reason fails whereas love guides. This love can be exemplified by those who spend hours practicing arts and handicrafts with no concern for real-world application, but ... posted on Oct 15, 3302 reads

Be Love Now
"Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You're being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or your most intimate lover--anyone...This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It's like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everythin... posted on Dec 24, 24002 reads

Click Here for Unconditional Love
On Sue Cochrane's website is a button that says "Click Here for Unconditional Love"- it leads to a selection of writings that offer exactly that. It isn't just the words of Sue's stories that touch the reader, but the wordless energy behind them. Sue Cochrane survived a traumatic childhood to become a pioneering family court judge. Throughout her career she strived to put the heart back into the b... posted on Feb 15, 0 reads

An Illustrated Poster for People Who Love Their Work
'Arbejdsglaede' is a wonderful Scandinavian word that literally means 'work-love' or 'work-glad'. There is no direct translation for this word in the English language, so Maptia decided to use crowdsourcing to explore its meaning. More than 200 people who love their jobs shared three words that described how they felt on a Monday morning. A beautiful poster summarizes the results, with the size of... posted on Apr 28, 40942 reads

The Third Harmony
In this short film made by the Metta Center for Nonviolence, veteran activists make clear the need for nonviolence on a worldwide scale at this critical stage in human evolution--not just to solve problems in an isolated crisis but as a way of life that can change the world for all of us. According to Dr. Bernard LaFayette, founder of the Center for Nonviolence & Peace studies, the challenge for e... posted on Jun 17, 2239 reads

bell hooks: A Revolutionary Who Led With Love
"I have known radicals and revolutionaries who love 'the people' but whose everyday lives are replete with contradictions. The late bell hooks was by no means perfect, but she was impressively consistent. She took seriously the notion that a revolution had to center love and was as much about transforming ourselves as it was about transforming the world. I met hooks when I was a graduate student a... posted on Jan 25, 4310 reads

The Abundance of Less
"Nakamura and I were sitting there drinking tea on a winter's day at his fire pit in the middle of the floor, and the shoji screens were open. We were looking across the valley; the snow was clinging to the cedar boughs, and the wind would come up throwing these sheets of powdered snow into the air. Mist was hiding the branches of the trees, and then revealing them. It felt like a Chinese ink pai... posted on Aug 19, 1918 reads

Writing a Better Story
There comes a time when we choose what stories we tell ourselves personally or as a community. "So let us all honor the stories that gave us courage and personal grounding, the stories that brought us here, the finest ones the ancestors carried for us until we could carry them for ourselves. Let us acknowledge the stories that its time to finally release, to name the dragon so that the dragon can... posted on Apr 1, 2283 reads

Gold is the Deepest Love
"'Gold,' the title of my book, is a word that recurs throughout Rumi's poetry. Rumi's gold is not the precious metal but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness, and calculation, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being. In sum, the prayer of Sufism is 'teach me to love more deeply.' Gold is t... posted on Aug 12, 4315 reads

The Nettle Dress
Over the course of seven years Allan Brown makes a dress by hand from foraged nettles. In the process, as he experiences the loss of two loved ones, he weaves his love into the fabric that he is creating. He spends seven summers harvesting the nettle and seven winters spinning it into fabric to make a dress for his daughter. The thread he creates carries his grief and his love, so that the cloth r... posted on Aug 26, 3043 reads

Bicycling Around the World for Love
A young Indian artist met a Swedish tourist in New Delhi, and painted her portrait in the 1970's. They formed an immediate bond and got married in PK Mahanadia's ancestral village. When the love of his life, Charlotte von Schedvin, had to go back to Sweden after a few weeks, he worked on a plan to sell his few possessions, purchased a used bicycle, and traveled 8000 kilometers to reunite with her.... posted on Feb 10, 1748 reads

Granddaughter's Eyes: 21-Day Climate Action Challenge
"Granddaughter's Eyes" is a music video that invites us to pay close attention to the Earth, to love her deeply and take action to heal her wounds. The song reminds us that every act of attention is an act of reciprocity, generating wonder and joy, perpetuating the gift. When we fall in love with the living world, a profound intention emerges from our attention, a longing to protect and honor her.... posted on Apr 19, 4283 reads

Relational Neuroscience & Art: A Love Story
"I want to tell you a love story. It spans 20 years. A woman exploring tide pools was approached by a 24-legged sunflower sea star who came out of the sea grass, touching her shoe and exploring her pant leg. The woman fell in love with that beautiful creature, and it changed her life forever. The woman is me, an artist, psychotherapist, and student of Relational Neuroscience and Interpersonal Ne... posted on Sep 26, 3411 reads

Untitled
While the most popular 50 websites are commercial, most of the 3 billion web pages in the world are not. Why? Kevin Kelly's, in Wall Street Journal's article on "The Web Runs on Love, Not Greed" says it's because people love to share.... posted on Mar 14, 2169 reads

Energizing Elixir
Love is in the air almost everywhere -- in movies, on TV, in greeting cards and, of course, in steamy romance novels. Ministers preach about it, pop stars sing about it, but what exactly is love? Researchers at Fetzer Institute are trying to understand its subtler, altruistic nature and coming to interesting conclusions. For instance, having a clear-eyed assessment of your spouse, and not the am... posted on Jun 12, 1167 reads

Risk something for love
It was never going to be easy for the American sergeant and the Iraqi doctor who fell in love in Baghdad - he was kicked out of the army and the country and she was threatened in the street. But now the couple, who married last August and haven't seen each other since, are to be reunited.... posted on Feb 17, 1865 reads

Father & Son Heroes
The story of Dick and Rick Hoyt is an inspirational love story, based on the philosophy "you can!" Although Rick was born with cerebral palsy, his parents were determined to treat him just like their other boys, despite medical professionals who counseled them otherwise. Consequently, Rick grew up engaging and intelligent; and when he was 12 years old even found his voice with the help of the 'Hop... posted on Sep 20, 2467 reads

Locks of Love
After witnessing her own child's hardships with hair loss due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, Madonna Coffman started Locks of Love. The non-profit collects donated hair, manufacturers them into hairpieces, and distributes them to financially disadvantaged children. The protheses provide help restore self-esteem, enabling the children to face the world and their peers. ... posted on Sep 20, 1247 reads

World's Largest Love Letter
The World’s Largest Love Letter, soon to be delivered from children in India to children in Pakistan, started as few projects do: for visa renewal! Two Americans visiting India needed to make a quick trip outside of India to renew their visas; how wonderful, they thought, if they could arrive in Pakistan carrying armloads of friendship letters – from children, to children. So they began riding... posted on Mar 19, 2762 reads

Made With Love Café
It started as a relief project after Hurricane Katrina. But it's still going today -- a volunteer-run kitchen that serves 1500 hot meals a day in New Orleans! "Our meals are free and available to anyone who needs food. We are non-political, non-religious, and hope that by bringing volunteers together from all over we can create a joyful and safe place for residents to begin rebuilding their comm... posted on May 31, 3094 reads

The Barber Who Loved Books
Fueled by a lifelong love of literature -- which began as a child when he sneaked a pre-dawn peek at his neighbor's newspaper –- Rueben Martinez decided it would be his mission to raise the literacy rate among Hispanics. He got the idea to open a bookstore inside his barbershop in 1993, after customers repeatedly borrowed his collection of 200 books. The store took on a life of its own, expandin... posted on Jul 23, 1548 reads

A Daughter's First Words
A little girl who cannot walk or talk has used a machine to tell her mother for the first time: "I love you." Six-year-old Elke Wisbey, who was born brain-damaged, has been able to communicate with her family by using a high-tech gadget which tracks her eye movements. Readers of a local newspaper raised money to buy the specially-adapted machine for the family. The MyTobii Smartbox machine from Sw... posted on Nov 2, 1829 reads

A Daughter's First Words
A little girl who cannot walk or talk has used a machine to tell her mother for the first time: "I love you." Six-year-old Elke Wisbey, who was born brain-damaged, has been able to communicate with her family by using a high-tech gadget which tracks her eye movements. Readers of a local newspaper raised money to buy the specially-adapted machine for the family. The MyTobii Smartbox machine from Sw... posted on Nov 6, 4249 reads

Wings of Love: Airline Ambassadors
She lost her father to cancer on Christmas Eve 1983. Traveling the world to find answers, she came to this realization of life's purpose: love in action. In 1997, this flight attendant started a nonprofit called Airline Ambassadors to deliver small amounts of humanitarian aid to orphanages worldwide. In 1999, she was honored as World Woman of Peace. Meet Nancy Rivard.... posted on Dec 25, 3312 reads

Benjamin Zander's Shining Eyes
There are 2 ways to approach this talk: 1. A man talks about classical music 2. A man discusses how to experience life and throws in some Chopin for good measure. Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections. ... posted on Feb 15, 4701 reads

Hero Provides A Free Lunch
Chemotherapy treatments are no fun, but patients here at the Kaiser Permanente Oncology Department in Denver have reason to look forward to their visits. On the fourth Thursday of every month everyone here -- patients, family, and staff -- gets a free, homemade lunch. "They love it and I love it. I bring sandwiches and Texas sheet cake, and chips. We have the same menu every month, but everybody l... posted on Aug 3, 2152 reads