Love, Loss, and Justice

Can love be ethical? Can beauty emerge from pain? This week frames love as a practice shaped by justice, values, and attention.

bell hooks redefines love entirely—not as a feeling but as a practice, an act of will and commitment to another’s spiritual growth. Love, for hooks, requires honesty, accountability, and the courage to grow. Maggie Smith writes her way through divorce, finding that “you could make this place beautiful” even when the place is ruin. Her work asks what we owe ourselves when everything falls apart.

Which text most redefines happiness for you—and why?