ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

 

                                                Matthew 22:39

 

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

                                                I Corinthians, 13

 

 

I think this is the first time I have quoted from the New Testament in my blog. These words, learned decades ago, came to me as I was thinking about love - not romantic love, but another broader, unsentimental kind of love. The above-quoted words had meaning for me when I was a child, and they continue to challenge me today.  (While I have issues with institutional Christianity, the words of Jesus still resonate.) 

 

I have been thinking about love a lot lately. Perhaps, in part, because I recently participated in a book study group, where we read Love Is the Way by Bishop Michael Curry.  Bishop Curry writes of a love that can bind a community, a radical love that might bring about social justice. I believe this is the same love Martin Luther King, Jr. was referencing when he said. “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." It is, I think, the love the Beatles were singing about in the song from which I took the title of this post.   

 

Of course, it is all well and good to set forth quotes about this kind of radical love, but how, I find myself asking, are we to cultivate and embody such love in a world so filled with hate and violence? I don’t know about you, but I am not making a lot of progress in loving certain of my neighbors.  And I am not referring here to the people in my immediate neighborhood, but to some of the people I see and hear in the news. People who spew hate. People lacking in compassion.

 

You get the idea.

 

One way I try to cultivate love, with varying degrees of success, is through the Buddhist loving kindness meditation.  Some of you are, no doubt, familiar with this meditation.  It is quite simple, although there are multiple versions.  Here is the one I like:

 

May I have an open heart.

May I be free from suffering.

May I be happy.

May I be at peace. 

 

After reciting these lines, the next step is to substitute someone you love, as in “May (name your loved one) have an open heart, etc.” After reciting the lines for as many loved ones as you like, the lines are recited for a person or persons about whom you feel neutral – e.g., the person who checks out your groceries.  

 

And then comes the hard part – reciting the lines for a person or persons about whom you have negative feelings.  I struggle with this.  Can I do this for those I believe are destroying the institutions in our country or preying on fellow citizens or starting an unnecessary war?  

 

When I try the meditation with these people in mind, I find myself reciting the words through gritted teeth.  And so, I often change the words to something like this:

 

May (the person I struggle to like, let alone love) have an open heart.

May they find compassion.

May they find empathy.

May they find humility.

 

Not perfect love, but the best I can do at the moment.

 

And what actions can we take to drive out hate with love? Perhaps we can take baby steps. In the words of the Dalai Lama, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”  Maybe this would look like supporting our local food bank, protesting cruelty and injustice, smiling at strangers, picking up litter, helping a friend.

 

And what of faith and hope?

 

I have faith, against all evidence to the contrary, that our lives are undergirded by love.  I do not know where this faith comes from.  Maybe from my childhood religion.  Maybe from reading about near-death experiences. Persons having had such experiences routinely report experiencing, and being surrounded by, an indescribable love, a love beside which any love experienced during our lifetimes pales to a mere shadow of that encountered during the NDE.

 

As for hope, I have hope that people of good will, working together can bring about a kinder, gentler world.  Without this hope (which I sometimes struggle to hold onto), despair will surely drown out both faith and love. 

 

I will leave you with this thought:

 

“Even practicing loving-kindness for the time it takes to snap the fingers is beneficial. Each drop of practice is significant and, as the Buddha said,‘with dripping drops of water, the water jug is filled.’”

-       from insightmeditationcenter.org

May we each, in our own way, contribute to filling the jug. 

 

              Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

 

 

 

MORE NAGGING QUESTIONS

                                   Photo by Matt Walsh

Gentle reader - I once again find myself bedeviled by questions large and small, important and not so important, some keeping me awake at night - others not so much.  There is no natural order to these questions; they, in fact, make for rather a lumpy stew, which I suppose is a reflection of the state of my mind. . . . 

Here goes:

Why did the neighbor on the corner of my block still have a 12-foot-tall skeleton on display in his front yard four months after Halloween? (It disappeared this morning, just as I sat down to write this post.  The neighborhood sends its thanks.) 

Why does the neighbor across the street from the skeleton-displaying house still have Christmas lights up two months into the new year?  I like festive lights during the holiday season as much as anyone, but the juxtaposition of these lights with daffodils and other spring blooms is a bit jarring.

Why is the pull-off backing on pills not pull-off-able? You know the ones I mean.  They look like this.

Am I the only person who is not able to remove the backing without a wrestling match involving scissors and a good deal of swearing?

How does almost every single actor* (regardless of the age of the actor) in almost every single TV show or movie have teeth that resemble chiclets? Perfectly square, perfectly even, blindingly white. Are they veneers?  

Are they chiclets?

Bonus question:  Why has no one found a cure for the common cold?

Turning now to more serious subjects:

Why has the president who promised no wars on his watch started a war in the part of the world that most resembles a tinderbox, without bothering to seek authorization from Congress? 

Would the most cowardly Congress in my lifetime have stopped him if he had sought authorization? 

Before starting this war, why did our president threaten to attack Iran if it did not stop killing its citizens, even as he was sending forth ICE agents in our own country to terrorize and kill our citizens? 

Can anyone spell hypocrisy? 

Believe me, I have no admiration for the Iranian government, but are we really venturing into the Middle East again after the debacle in Iraq?

Have we learned nothing?

Why does the nation with the second-largest nuclear stockpile in the world (Russia has us beat) -- the same nation that is the only nation to have deployed a nuclear weapon against the citizens of another country -- feel free to criticize and attack other countries for trying to develop nuclear weapons?

Of course, I don't want any more countries to obtain nuclear weapons. But, as every parent knows, "Do as I say, not as I do" is not an effective message.  Perhaps cutting back our own stockpile would be a good start to making us seem less hypocritical.  (There's that word again.)

Asking for a friend - Is it possible that this war is an attempt to distract us from the high cost of groceries?  From the Epstein scandal? From our broken healthcare system?

Why are corporate leaders--and the members of Congress they have bought--still putting profits ahead of environmental concerns?  Do they not have children or grandchildren?  If they do have progeny, do they think said progeny will be able to eat, drink, and breathe profits?

Has our president read the U.S. Constitution?  If so, can he or one of his minions please point to the part of the Constitution that supports his claim that the recent Supreme Court opinion declaring many of his tariffs to be illegal was "unconstitutional"?  Has anyone told him that the definition of "unconstitutional" is not "something I don't like"?  

Why has Congress (I'm looking at you, Republicans) freely ceded its power to the president? 

Sigh.  I think I need to lie down.

*Per my actor daughter, the term "actor" covers both males and females.