{"id":17123,"date":"2026-02-18T03:13:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T03:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/substack-post\/love-builds-here\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T00:32:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T00:32:04","slug":"love-builds-here","status":"publish","type":"sstack-posts","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/substack-post\/love-builds-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Builds Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"captioned-image-container\">\n<figure><a class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/%24s_!RcsV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1d299104-609b-47aa-ba78-ad7f4dd3fc6e_800x450.heic\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image2-inset\">\n<div class=\"image-link-expand\">\n<div class=\"pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset\"><button type=\"button\" class=\"pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image\"><\/button><button type=\"button\" class=\"pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image\"><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>&ldquo;Love seeketh not itself to please,<br \/>Nor for itself hath any care,<br \/>But for another gives its ease,<br \/>And builds a Heaven in Hell&rsquo;s despair.&rdquo;<br \/>&mdash; William Blake, from The Clod and the Pebble&sup1;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>William Blake was a person of his time.<\/p>\n<p>An 18th-century engraver, mystic, and poet shaped by revolution and industrial upheaval. He carried his era&rsquo;s cosmology, blind spots, and limits. He did not know what he did not know. None of us do.<\/p>\n<div class=\"subscription-widget-wrap-editor\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/mrose.substack.com\/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"SubscribeWidgetToDOM\">\n<div class=\"subscription-widget show-subscribe\">\n<div class=\"preamble\">\n<p class=\"cta-caption\">Michael M. Rose is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fake-input-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"fake-input\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"fake-button\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>And yet, he stretched.<\/p>\n<p>Toward something beautiful. Toward a vision of love that strained the seams of rigid religion and caused more than a little groaning in ecclesiastical wineskins. To the same, not quite a heretic&mdash;perhaps eccentric. Certainly unsettling.<\/p>\n<p>And in the midst of it, he wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Love builds a Heaven in Hell&rsquo;s despair.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That line has been bouncing around inside of me.<\/p>\n<p>If love is not sentimental but structural, not weak but non-coercively generative, then it is the primary element in the alchemy of what I call the Beautiful Way.<\/p>\n<p>Love is the creative, whole-making force that enlivens and sustains all things.<br \/>Not decorative. Foundational.<br \/>Not skittish at the edges of reality, but stitched into its fabric.<\/p>\n<p>Love makes things beautiful&mdash;not instantly or magically, but patiently, persistently, relationally.<\/p>\n<p>When I use the word <em>hell<\/em>, I am not imagining an eternal torture chamber reserved for the damned. I am speaking of the hells we know&mdash;the realities cast in the shadow of greed, exploitation, abusive power, injustice, grief, violence, and quiet despair.<\/p>\n<p>The hospital waiting room.<br \/>The refugee camp.<br \/>The boardroom where profit outruns people.<br \/>The private ache no one sees.<\/p>\n<p>Blake may have meant something different within his symbolic universe. I am borrowing his poetry and bending it toward the hell living folks actually endure.<\/p>\n<p>Blake does not say love avoids hell.<br \/>He says love builds heaven there.<\/p>\n<p>This is the <s>invitation<\/s> clarion call. (sometimes Love shouts)<\/p>\n<p>We co-create the Beautiful Way by choosing to live loved&mdash;to remain connected to the Source of love itself. Not manufacturing it. Not forcing it. But receiving it. Trusting we are already held within a deeper current of relentless Love.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Jay Oord describes this divine love as inherently non-coercive&mdash;love that cannot override, but always influences toward flourishing. It does not dominate. It persists. It inspires. It invites.<\/p>\n<p>And then, from that place, love takes on skin and story through us.<br \/>Not as a private virtue project, but as a shared way of being.<br \/>Our love becomes part of the living threads of divine Love&mdash;woven between us&mdash;forming what I can only call community of the heart&mdash;where diversity is celebrated, and unity means shared life, not sameness.<\/p>\n<p>This is how the Beautiful Way takes shape. Not just in me and you, but among us.<\/p>\n<p>We co-create it together&mdash;and with God&mdash;through ordinary, courageous acts of presence: showing up, listening well, telling the truth without cruelty, repairing what we can, and refusing to let anyone suffer alone.<\/p>\n<p>Love doesn&rsquo;t merely &ldquo;help.&rdquo;<br \/>It gathers.<br \/>It joins.<br \/>It makes a we.<\/p>\n<p>Teilhard de Chardin imagined love as the most mysterious and powerful of cosmic energies&mdash;the force drawing the universe toward greater wholeness and communion. Not sentiment. Not abstraction. The deep grammar of reality.<\/p>\n<p>In a hospital room, across a kitchen table, or on a prairie road under a wide, forgiving sky, we will not fix everything. But we can refuse to add to the despair. We can choose presence over control, curiosity over condemnation, and repair over retribution.<\/p>\n<p>This is not na&iuml;vet&eacute;. It is courage.<\/p>\n<p>To give our ease,to loosen our grip on comfort, certainty, and superiority, is risky. Love is not coercive. It influences, invites, persists.<\/p>\n<p>And when we participate in that love, something shifts.<\/p>\n<p>Not all at once.<br \/>Not everywhere.<br \/>But here. Now.<\/p>\n<p>A little heaven pushes back the edges of hell.<\/p>\n<p>The Beautiful Way is not a flashy showboat. It is faithful. It is the quiet decision, again and again, to remain tender in a world that can make us hard.<\/p>\n<p>Live loved.<br \/>Live love.<br \/>Build heaven in hell&rsquo;s despair.<\/p>\n<p>And trust that Love&mdash;the deeper Love&mdash;has already begun the work.<\/p>\n<p>Sola Caritas,<\/p>\n<p>     &#120707;Michael<\/p>\n<div class=\"captioned-button-wrap\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/mrose.substack.com\/p\/love-builds-here?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"CaptionedButtonToDOM\">\n<div class=\"preamble\">\n<p class=\"cta-caption\">Thanks for reading Michael M. Rose! This post is public so feel free to share it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"button-wrapper\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/mrose.substack.com\/p\/love-builds-here?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\"><a class=\"button primary\" href=\"https:\/\/mrose.substack.com\/p\/love-builds-here?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;action=share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span>Share<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Notes<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p>William Blake, <em>The Clod and the Pebble<\/em>, in <em>Songs of Experience<\/em> (1794).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"subscription-widget-wrap-editor\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/mrose.substack.com\/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}\" data-component-name=\"SubscribeWidgetToDOM\">\n<div class=\"subscription-widget show-subscribe\">\n<div class=\"preamble\">\n<p class=\"cta-caption\">Michael M. Rose is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fake-input-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"fake-input\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"fake-button\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On dusty prairie roads and forgotten back alleys, in war zones and around kitchen tables &#8212; love is the quiet, stubborn presence that refuses to let despair have the last word.","protected":false},"featured_media":17140,"template":"","meta":[],"class_list":["post-17123","sstack-posts","type-sstack-posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sstack-posts\/17123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sstack-posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sstack-posts"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sstack-posts\/17123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17296,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sstack-posts\/17123\/revisions\/17296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}