
Open Your Heart: The Power of Love
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BECAUSE
So I can't save the world--
can't save even myself,
can't wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can't
foster peace among nations,
can't bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can't stop a war.
One willing heart can't feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what's the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildy.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.
- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
from The Unfolding
The Power of One Open Heart
The poem does not promise that love will be enough to end war or erase pain, but it asserts that love matters. That each act of kindness, no matter how small, ripples outward. That choosing to love—even when faced with indifference or cruelty—is itself an act of defiance against despair.
This is not naïve optimism; it is an intentional way of being. To “walk down the street heart first” is to engage with the world from a place of radical compassion. It is to look beyond cynicism and believe in the power of human connection.
Love as a Revolutionary Act
What if we took love seriously? What if, instead of seeing love as a sentimental ideal, we treated it as a force strong enough to shape the world? What if we stopped treating it as something soft, optional, and instead recognized it as the most radical, necessary thing we can offer?
Trommer’s poem reminds us that love is not just for when it is easy, when it is welcomed, when it is met with open arms. Real love—the kind that matters—shows up when it feels impossible, when the world is indifferent or cruel, when our hearts are tired and afraid.
To “race up to the world as if [we] were a puppy,” boundless and unguarded, is to refuse the numbness we armour ouselves with, that tries to protect us, but only keeps us small. It is to love not cautiously, not conditionally, but wildly. Without apology. Without the need for proof that it will be enough.
Because this is the love the world is starving for—This is the kind of love the world needs.