The GIving Tree

We've all heard the virtues of LOVE. How it conquers all. How it's blind. How it will find a way. However, I've also heard LOVE described as a selfish, hungry thing. An emotion that drives a person to want another exclusively.

Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree is a good book to look at when reflecting on the nature of LOVE and how different people feel different kinds of LOVE at different times in their lives.

It's a good book to read before you become a parent and then after you become a parent. Your interpretation shifts a bit. Every time I read The Giving Tree I'm left to ask if LOVE is giving or taking? Is it selfish or selfless? Is the kid a jerk and the tree a sap (forgive the pun)?

Either way, The Giving Tree is an eloquent parable, worth reading again and again.