Blog4Peace: November 4, 2015

This is a verse that is often used at weddings --- so often that it may seem trite.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, love is patient, love is kind.

When I read it, I don't necessarily think of weddings, although it's good to have that kind of love if you're married and everything.  For me, it is easy to have that kind of love with my husband.  For one thing, if one of us isn't patient or kind, we have the next best thing, forgiveness.  

It's also easy for me to have this kind of love with my children.  They are mine, after all.  I might get pissed off, but I will always love them.  If I forget, I think of them as little babies, and of the absolute over-pouring of love I felt when I held them.  It's a little messier, now that they talk and all, but I still love them totally, without condition.

As I have traveled on my journey toward God, I've figured something out.  One thing.  God loves us no matter what, and all that God asks (and this isn't a condition, it's just a Good Thing) is that we love each other as God loves us.  Without condition.  Without stopping.  Through anger and frustration and (my worst problem) annoyance and pig-headedness.

Some people have trouble loving strangers.  They don't see pictures of small boys washed ashore in far-off lands and think, damn, that kid could be mine.  They don't see soldiers and babies and sad-faced women and think, that is mine.  I do.  I don't know why, but my heart is full of love and empathy and sympathy for people I don't know.

Some people need to know someone to love them.  If they know about the person's troubles or dreams or favorite ice cream, they can find a connection and love them.  I can too, I guess.  But I have a harder time loving someone who I have to talk to and (heaven forbid) listen to on a regular basis.  I have a harder time loving bigots and fear-mongers who I hear, right now.  I have a harder time loving a neighbor who calls the pound because my cat walks in her yard.  I have a harder time loving someone who likes a different kind of ice cream or religion or baseball team than I do.  I have a harder time with someone who can't freaking use a turn signal, for Pete's sake.

But God didn't say, love others who aren't annoying.  Love others who love chocolate and cheese (not together) as much as you do.  Love your own kind.  God said Love everyone.  Love your annoying neighbor.  Love your bigoted boss.  Love your friend who doesn't love cats.

For me, I pray for something more than tolerance.  I pray to think of these people as if they were my friends or my family, people who I like and for whom I cut some slack.  It doesn't always work.  It's a journey, right?  For others, I wonder if they can pretend that the dead children, the sad women, the angry soldiers are their friends; people who like strawberry ice cream and dogs and baseball.  Maybe if we pretend that the rest of the people in the world are ours, we will love them.  And maybe that will give us peace.

Day 2 ‪#‎30DaysofLove‬ Challenge

Day 2 ‪#‎30DaysofLove‬ Challenge
Today I saw colleagues at work surround each other with a beautiful blanket of support. A few among us are struggling with family illnesses, deaths, personal sorrows, worries and the like. Today business-as-usual stopped long enough for hugs and shoulders and long-standing love between friends. What kind of love did you witness today?

OK, still behind, but this is easy, given the circumstances:

 

Everybody with a truck or john-boat (and this is Columbia, SC, so a lot of people have one or both) went out to help their neighbors.  Rich neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, businesses, animal shelters.  

Gotta love social media. People have been found, pets reunited with their people, friends from far away have been comforted.
#blog4peace #30DaysofLove

Two days behind: Day one: Who is the one person in your life who inspires you to love?

In my defense, I'm late because my city and my state have flooded to an extent we haven't seen since the Pleistocene Era, when most of us weren't alive and there were no weathermen to tell us which way the wind blows.

We are ok, in my house.  We are now handing out water, because (who knew it?) in floods, the water system goes out and even if you have running water, you can't drink it.  Before today, you couldn't buy water, and so people from places with water have trucked it in for us.  This hasn't been easy, either, because many of the roads, including interstates, are washed out.

Infrastructure isn't sexy, but it sure does make life easier.


In truth, I might have been late anyway, because that's what I do.  And it is a hard question.

The One.  The One Person.  The One Person who inspires you to love?  Oh my.

I could pick either of my parents.  Their compassion and sense of justice and mercy is the bedrock of my life.  I could pick my brother and sister, my first friends and still my best friends.  Crazy as we can be, we love each other and eat together on a regular basis, and that's something.

I could pick my kids, because, for me, having a child opened up a whole new cistern of untapped love.  Having a second and third child reminded me that love is not divided, it multiplies.  Don't get me started about my grandchildren.  There is always enough.

There are a few people I could pick, but I think I'll pick my husband and love of my life, Bob.  When I met Bob, I liked him alright, and I think somewhere in my self-damaged heart, I loved him.  I have no idea how he looked at my bedraggled, broken self and loved me, but he did.

And in the 30 years since then, we have loved each other.  In sickness and health.  When things are great and when they really truly suck.  When it's flooding and when there hasn't been rain in six months.  On car trips and in vacation condos with 10 other people.  Alone, at Brookgreen Garden or Ray's Diner (our places).

Because of Bob, I have my own cistern of love.  I am loved and so I can give away as much love as the whole damn world needs.  It will never run out.
#blog4peace ‪#‎30DaysofLove‬

#blog4peace