"To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. We are often taught we have no control over our "feelings." Yet most of us accept that we choose our actions, that intention and will inform what we do. We also accept that our actions have consequences. To think of actions shaping feelings is one way we rid ourselves of conventionally accepted assumptions such as that parents love their children, or that one simply "falls" in love without exercising will or choice, that there are such things as "crimes of passion," i.e. he killed her because he loved her so much. If we were constantly remembering that love is as love does, we would not use the word in a manner that devalues and degrades its meaning."

The 'commandment' of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be 'commanded' because it has first been given.

The 'commandment' of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be 'commanded' because it has first been given.

You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave

Emotional life can be influenced, but it cannot be commanded.

Let us try what love will do.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so.

Let us see what love can do.

Some things are within our power while others are not.

While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us.

We cannot always control or avoid what happens to us, but we can control what it does to our spirit.

Nothing is less in our power than the heart, and far from commanding we are forced to obey it.

Love is an action, a participatory emotion. Whether we are engaged in a process of self-love or of loving others we must move beyond the realm of feeling to actualize love.