In love and what?

Wise Words: love and light

How do you sign off in your emails? At work, I imagine you use something along the lines of "Yours sincerely", "Best regards" or "Kind regards". More informally, "All the best" works well too. If you're in a hurry, and know the person you are writing to, a "rgds" will often suffice. How about signing off with "in love and light", which is Victoria Beckham's regular sign-off on her tweets?  

In love and what? Victoria Beckham's strange sign-off

I'd never seen anyone use "in love and light" before. I often write "love" or "with lots of love" to good friends or family members, but I'd recommend leaving out "love" altogether in business emails. The crosses stand for kisses, so wouldn't normally belong in a business email — or tweet. The combination of "in" and "love" puts your relationship on a whole new level, too. It's typically said or written at the beginning of a relationship. I can barely remember when I last wrote "in love". Probably before I started using emails.

What's the meaning behind "light"? And why combine it with "love"? It sounded to me like some esoteric, touchy-feely, pseudo-religious phrase. I did a bit of Googling and came across a group on the popular social networking site Facebook. It's called "One step forward — living in love and light ". The group was created by someone in California, which didn't surprise me. You can join the group if you want to publicize one small thing that you will do that will make a difference to the world. The creator of the site suggests eating a strawberry instead of a cookie. As winter is coming, I think I'll stick with the cookie.

Maybe Victoria will create a new trend. She's done it before, as has her husband. But unless you want people to think you're on a spiritual trip, I suggest you stick to the old favourites. 

In the meantime, you could learn and use the following expressions that contain "love" and "light": 

shed (some) light on sth. = Licht in eine Sache bringen; eine Sache erhellen, aufklären

"I was hoping you could shed some light on the problems we've been having with the new software."

I'd love to = sehr gerne

"Would you like to join us for dinner on Saturday?"
"I'd love to!"