choosing

Anticipation

Any minute now, my sister will be arriving to spend the night. Any minute. I’ve been telling myself this for an hour or so now. Still, no Annie.

Why is it that the things we so eagerly anticipate are the things that seem to take the longest to arrive?

This feeling is so common to the human experience, that we have aphorisms and proverbs that speak to it. The idiom in English is: a watched pot never boils. Before telephones were mobile, and came with us everywhere, my mother used to tell me not to just sit there waiting for the phone to ring – that the surest way for the call to come through was to get busy doing something productive. I can remember many times throughout my life when the anticipation seemed endless, almost unbearable. Who could stand to wait for Christmas, or summer vacation, or your birthday?

Funny how often this kind of eager anticipation is followed by an emotional letdown. Graduated from college? Hooray…now what? Christmas is finally here? Yippee…I didn’t get what I wanted. The New Year’s Eve party, trip to Vegas, prom…not really as much fun as the emotional hype leading up to them.

And yet.

Here’s something I’ve noticed recently. The ratio of events I’m eagerly anticipating to events that meet or surpass my expectations is getting better. Compared with my expectations, the following events surpassed anything I anticipated: my reunions with various old friends this past year = more meaningful and loving; The Oprah Tribute Show = better and more emotionally touching; time with my sister Anne = more fun and relaxed than a quick visit should be. And each hard fought pound dropped = more internal satisfaction than I ever expected to feel this far into my weight loss odyssey. (It took Odyssius ten years to make his way home from Troy, so I think odyssey is an appropriate word choice here!)

What I find myself wondering is whether I have learned to manage the anticipation, and keep it to a reasonable level OR if, instead, I have matured into a better understanding of the right life experiences to anticipate? Recently, I asked a friend if he felt let down after a series of big events in his life concluded. His response, “No letdown.  I don’t get letdowns too easy.  I’m very content…” struck me as a little too sanguine at the time. But the more I think about it, the more I come to believe he’s onto something. For me, it is less about being content than it is about living fully in the moment that comes – whatever it holds, no matter the advance hype. The good or great times can be fully enjoyed for what they are. And the other moments, even the difficult ones, can then be taken in stride without losing equilibrium. Being content isn’t about experiencing flat emotions (as my younger self suspected) – it is more about aligning oneself with the big picture of one’s life, instead of the momentary frame.

In her song, “Anticipation”, made famous by its use in the Heinz Ketchup commercials, Carly Simon writes about anticipation getting in the way of living her life right now – she’s late to meet her lover because she’s thinking about what might be. By the end of the song, she arrives at this conclusion: “So I’ll try and see into your eyes right now/And stay right here ’cause these are the good old days.” We could all choose worse credos to live by.

64,288 (give or take)

Wednesday. May 18, 2011. 5:34 a.m. My alarm had been ringing for four minutes before I woke at its insistence. I got up, feeling like a tub of something 72 hours past its use-by date. I was too tired to pee, so I got dressed first, then went in search of the bathroom. After vainly attempting to locate the light switch, I decided I could brush my teeth without looking at them. By 5:54 I was out the door, in my car, pencilled street directions in hand.

Trying to follow detour signs through the Loop in Chicago is an exercise in futility. There is one sign, telling you of the detour. Once you’ve followed that one instruction, the detour pretty much becomes DIY. Luckily, 6 a.m. downtown is not a heavy traffic time. Also, I have a pretty good sense of direction. I eventually found I-290 W and headed home in earnest.

It was raining. Morning rush hour was in full swing on the expressway. My brain was alert and fully occupied through the bottleneck that begins at Austin and ends just past Harlem (every/any day, every/any time, including Sunday afternoons). Eventually, though, the traffic thinned. I paid my first tolls, and I was out of the city. Another 3 hours of driving with the monotonous swish swish swish of the wipers. Unrelenting gray. And eyes that burned with the desire to close.

To keep myself awake, I began replaying the previous night in my head, attempting to reconstruct it from the moment Oprah drove past in the back seat of a taxi (filming the 25,000 people, mostly women, waiting to enter the United Center for her tribute show). In order. There were so many stars, so many video clips, so many images. I couldn’t timeline it. And that’s when the number at the title of this post came to me. It may not be the exact number -though I think it is at least very close. (I was not taking notes.)

64,288. This is the number of people who have received an education because of Oprah. (They didn’t have footnotes explaining how they determined this number, so for once, let’s agree to take it on faith that the number is accurate.)

64,288. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many people that is. How can one person have made such an important difference in so many lives? During one segment of the show, Oprah Winfrey Scholarship winners from Morehouse College filled, and overflowed, the stage. When Oprah joined them, they mobbed her, with hugs and thank you’s. That might have been my favorite moment of the night.

As I drove, I was thinking that these 64,288 people could change everything. I could see the assistance that came from Oprah as the catalyst, like a stone dropped in the middle of a still pond. The first ripple, the lives directly affected by her generosity. The second, the way those lives changed course and affected their families, friends, communities. The ripples, and the number of people affected, could grow exponentially, moving outward into larger and larger circles of influence.

And then I started mentally following the ripples back inward, toward the center. From 64,288 back to one. The still point at the center: one person. OK, so it was Oprah, not exactly your ordinary individual.

Still. I am one person, too. I can be that point from which change ripples outward into the world, if I choose. What would that look like, coming from very ordinary me? One thing I know for sure, to borrow Oprah’s phrase, is that it wouldn’t happen accidentally. Creating real change in the world – whether it is generating a greater atmosphere of kindness, educating the masses, building wells so that whole communities have clean water, or ending hunger – real change doesn’t happen without both intent and action. It isn’t accidental.

And this, my friends, is what kept me awake on the drive home, the morning following the Oprah tribute show. Not remembering the amazing celebrities or their incredible performances, though that was truly an unforgettable experience. Instead, remembering the 64,288.

I am one person. What will I do to change the world for the better?

(note: Thanks to my sister Anne for giving me the ticket to the show! It was a wonderful experience, sis! I love you!)

Mid-bloom

I follow National Geographic on Twitter. Just as has always been true of their magazine, they publish amazing snapshots, including  this photo (click link, at site go to April Week 3, sunflower photo April 12) of a sunflower in mid-bloom. When I saw this, it seemed such an apt metaphor for so many things: those moments when we are on the cusp of something new, when we are being born into a new self – whether that is due to a new perspective, a new relationship, a flowering of potential we’ve carried within and are now expressing.

Tuesday, it seemed the metaphor for an unplanned moment of revelation. We were to have a speaker for a motivational presentation at 9:00 a.m. Unfortunately, our speaker woke with a fever and was forced to cancel. There wasn’t time to call off the event, so we regrouped with the ten or so people in attendance and asked them to share what inspires them. In a wonderfully serendipitous moment, a woman in the group chose to share her life story. It was one of transformation and self-discovery after a painful beginning which included alcoholism and low self-esteem. Her turning point came after watching her daughter succeed in breaking the example provided by the two preceding generations of her family. This woman revealed, fresh petal by fresh petal, the new person she is becoming, the beautiful new life she is creating. It was both inspiring and moving to be part of that moment.

Which offers a real contrast to my current state, because today a flower frozen in mid-bloom feels like an appropriate metaphor for where I am in my life. I was like a tightly closed bud, carrying the potential to bloom, but waiting for the right combination of sun and rain and nutrients to open.  In the past year and a half, I have felt myself opening, one petal at a time. Most of the time in recent months, I have felt the energy of new life in my veins. I have literally felt growth and movement.

But not now.

This week, I feel like I’ve run out of juice or as if there isn’t enough sunlight to produce the necessary photosynthesis (I’m sure I would be applying this metaphor more gracefully if I had paid attention in high school biology). The petals that have opened are lovely and I am proud of them. I very much wish the rest to open so I feel both wholly lovely and more complete. Less unfinished. But I suddenly find I am casting a shadow over myself, blocking my own sunlight: through procrastination, through permissive self-talk (“go ahead, eat that donut/cookie/whole package of rice thins, it won’t hurt this once”), through choosing not to follow through. By letting myself off the hook.

I’m not sure how to unfreeze from this weird stasis I’ve entered into. Perhaps I just got distracted by how pretty those first open petals are – like Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection, I’ve spent too much time in awe of myself, congratulating myself on what is done. And now, realizing that I still have half my blooming to do, I vacillate between impatience and paralysis.

One thing I do know for sure from sad experience as a child: you cannot force a flower to bloom by prying its petals open. Just wanting it isn’t enough, either. I will have to get back to holding myself accountable, though right now that feels almost insurmountably hard. This isn’t going to be one of those blog posts where I tie things up neatly with a final statement of what I’ve learned or an inspirational quote. Instead, it is one of those posts where I end with a shrug and say, I’ll let you know what happens next.

(Note: sorry I couldn’t show the photo in a less a clunky way, but I understand National Geographic’s need to maintain control of their incredible images. Hope you are able to find the sunflower!)

Awakening The Dreamer…(part 1 of 2)

“I don’t think an authentic stand comes from your head. I think an authentic stand comes from your heart.” Van Jones

A couple of weeks ago, I flew with friends to Vegas for a long weekend. It was fun, but while we were there, our conversation returned several times to the artificiality of the environment. Vegas is about the least authentic place on earth. I remember one comment about the waste of both water and electricity in that city in the desert. But, like the hundreds of thousands of others there for St. Patrick’s Day (or March Madness or Spring Break), we were there to have fun. We didn’t dwell on anything as deep as what it meant to participate in the inauthenticity and waste that are the hallmarks of the Las Vegas experience. We were there to conspicuously consume, gamble, eat and gawk – not to think too much.

And so our three days in Vegas passed in an almost trance-like state. We ate when we felt like it, we drank when we felt like it, we slept as little as possible no matter what we felt like. Most of the time, I had no idea what time of day it was, nor did I track what I was spending. I was awake and moving, but a large part of me was asleep.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, to Saturday, April 2. 9:00 a.m. found me seated in a conference room, holding my Starbuck’s venti Americano in the iconic paper cup, ready for a symposium I was attending for work. The truth is, I wasn’t sure what to expect, because I hadn’t really paid attention to what the symposium was about other than a vague idea that is was related to sustainability. I also was not thrilled to be spending another Saturday at a work-related event.

Five minutes into the symposium, I was crying. It would be difficult for me to tease apart the complex threads of emotion the symposium evoked, but it was comprised of shame, grief, fear, pain. In one of the symposium’s video modules, Joanna Macy says not to be afraid to feel the pain associated with what we are learning. She says we need to feel the pain, and follow it to what it springs from – which is love. Love of this earth, love of our fellow humans, love of our fellow inhabitants of the planet.

The name of the powerful symposium, “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream”, is now etched on my memory. As is the goal of the alliance who created it: “Bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just human presence on this planet.” What resonates with me about this particular take on our environmental future is, first, the direct line of connection drawn between the environment, spirit and social justice. Second, the hopeful stance taken that we can, indeed, change the trajectory we are currently moving along.

“Awakening the dreamer” speaks to the idea that most of us in wealthy, privileged societies, are living in a kind of trance or dream which allows us to “not know” that our choices, our consumption, our distraction have real and damaging consequences in the world. The video modules tell a powerful story of this dream world we’re living in, and it rings true. My friends and I experienced it in a palpable way in Vegas, where it was so exaggerated that it actually impinged on our consciousness (most days in our normal routines, we never even notice we are living in a dream).

And here’s the thing: I think many of us have, for a while, been on the verge of waking up. You know, like those times when you are lying in bed and start to wake up, maybe you even crack your eyes open — only to quickly tell yourself to just close them again and you’ll get back to sleep. I’ve peeked at this world and quickly closed my eyes again because it is so much easier to stay asleep. I don’t have to recycle. I don’t have to make my own coffee or argue with the barrista to put it in my reusable mug. As long as I can continue to “not know”, I can enjoy the lights on the Vegas strip without thinking about the Navajo people living at Black Mesa.

But how authentic or just or spiritually fulfilling is that? Maybe we should just take a deep breath and open our eyes.

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world — we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.

— Joanna Macy

Measuring vs Pouring

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

–T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

“It is the law that is measured out. It is the law that always asks the questions, “How far do I have to go? How much is enough?” But love never asks these questions because love is never measured out. Love is always poured out.”

—Bill Mills, Naked and Unashamed


It is a little strange to begin an entry with two quotes, especially two which come from such completely different sources. The first, from one of my favorite poems (especially to read aloud), strikes me as being all about living life by holding back, by choosing to believe that pouring oneself out into the world unreservedly would be presumptuous. Poor Prufrock feels the insecurities of being ordinary in a world which values the extraordinary – and who among us has not felt that? And feeling that, he holds back. We hold back.

The second quote, above, comes from a source I haven’t read. Instead, this quotation was included in a blog post by Randy Greenwald, and it has stayed with me for days. Love is always poured out. Which is to say, if it isn’t being poured out, if it is being held back, measured, and dribbled out, it isn’t love.

Usually, I would want to blather on and on about what all this means. Today, I simply want to say that in learning to love my life, I have been learning to pour myself out – to allow love to flow unimpeded by insecurities and fear. I haven’t learned to do this perfectly yet. But I have learned that putting myself out there in a careful trickle only results in regret. So I am going to let love (of life, of others, of my flawed self) cascade, flood, gush forth and inundate my world. I hope you’ll join me — and let it pour, baby, let it pour!

Respectful Dissent

This morning I was inspired by remarks made by Dr. Maryanne Stevens, President of the College of St. Mary in Omaha, Nebraska. Dr. Stevens’ comments were the final remarks on a weekend retreat exploring the theme of what it means to be a Mercy college or university (for more information on Mercy institutions of higher education, please check out the Conference for Mercy Higher Education website. I believe Dr. Stevens’ remarks will eventually be posted there.)

I cannot do justice to Dr. Stevens’ remarks by attempting to paraphrase them here. However, I do want to share my thoughts regarding one concept introduced this morning: respectful dissent. Respectful dissent, according to Dr. Stevens, involves first listening with an open heart and mind. Then, we must turn inward and reflect upon what we have heard, before determining our response. Only after deep reflection, if we feel called to dissent, by virtue of our membership in a community we would look for ways to do so respectfully. Within the context of Dr. Stevens’ remarks, the community under discussion was the Catholic Church. She was able to offer several examples of respectful dissent within that faith community.

As I’ve thought about this concept throughout the day, I see that it has application for many areas of my life, including but not limited to my rocky relationship with Catholicism. In the workplace, as we struggle to define our roles and to intentionally create policies and programs which reflect our mission and values. In our civic and political engagements, as we strive to resolve difficult and contentious differences in our visions for the society in which we live. In our families, where we hope to create safe and trusting environments which feed our souls and allow us a safe place to land if we fall in life.

We live in a world which appears to have accepted wholeheartedly an adversarial model of disagreement, with a concomitant style of discourse which espouses confrontation and disrespect for those with differing views. We spend our energy shouting each other down, or worse shooting each other down. Respectful dissent would differ in that the process would include dialogue: both deep listening and deep speaking (from the center of ourselves, rather than from the surface, our egos). Its end goal would be lasting and transformative change, as opposed to declaring the loudest voice “the winner” and disenfranchising “the loser”.

 Are there situations in which it would be inappropriate, or not be applicable, to engage in respectful dissent? I don’t know, however, I am doubtful that those who dissent from men like Moammar Gadhafi would be successfully able to take this approach. On a more personal level, do I know what it would look like if I attempted to bring it as a personal response into my daily life? Not really. But I suspect that if I am able to engage more often in respectful dissent, it will result in fewer embarrassing reflections on my hot-headed over-reactions, as well as the need for fewer apologies for steamrolling over other’s opinions. And I think I would like those changes quite a lot.

Fearing Less

This morning, my friend Tricia and I made good on a challenge we gave ourselves: we spoke to a group of people not as the “experts” our job titles make us, but as Jen and Tricia, two people trying to fear less in our lives. It was a little daunting, but it also felt like a step I was ready to take after sharing so openly on this blog.

I shared with them a story that I haven’t shared with you all, yet. And I think it is about time to do so.

A few years ago, I went on a retreat at Prairiewoods, a Franciscan Spirituality Center here in Cedar Rapids. What attracted me to the particular retreat was that it was led by an Iowa writer named Mary Swander and based on the themes of her book The Desert Pilgrim (read a review, here). The book is set primarily in New Mexico, and the retreat was intended to look at Christian mysticism and healing. In reading the book, I discovered some interesting ways in which my life and Mary’s intersected, and that we shared a love of some of the same mystical places, such as the Santuario De Chimayo.

The retreat was an interesting experience, and I was very much enjoying being at Prairiewoods. On Saturday morning, the Center had offered retreatants the opportunity to schedule massages prior to our evening prayer service. I was given the last massage time slot, which would mean entering the evening retreat activities a few minutes late. During the massage, I was physically uncomfortable, had difficulty breathing, and became concerned (as did the massage therapist) about how I was feeling – especially since prior to getting on the massage table I had been fine.  The therapist was highly intuitive, and laid her hands on my back, saying, “I want you to know that, whatever issues you are dealing with, there are many people in this world and the next who love you. They want you to know they are with you, and care for you.” I felt significantly better after that, and as the massage ended, I felt ready to join the rest of the group. The massage therapist asked if I would be alright, and I replied that I was fine.

After dressing, I stepped outside into the frigid but clear February night, on my way to the building where my group was meeting. Suddenly, I was struck with what can only be described as an interior lightning bolt and I fell to my knees on the sidewalk – overcome with the certainty that I was going to die. And I don’t mean the existential concept that we all will someday die. I mean, the actual very real certainty that I was going to die that night. I was terrified. I only managed to get up from the ground because I didn’t want to die outside, alone. Once inside the retreat building, I realized that I was both crying and hyperventilating and that these facts might be too disruptive for the quiet prayer service in progress. I detoured to the ladies room.

Once locked in a stall in the restroom, I couldn’t shake the certainty of my own death. I imagined myself falling to the floor, and once again found strength to act by simply not wishing my last moments to be alone on a restroom floor. With a great deal of effort, I brought my breathing under control and dried my eyes. I joined the prayer service, luckily conducted by candlelight, and the calm and prayerful atmosphere helped to settle my nerves a bit. Still, my heart was racing and I could feel my fear as a palpable thing.

At the end of the prayer service, while the lights were still out, another retreatant said, “Mary, I sometimes get these messages while in prayer. Usually they are for someone else, and I don’t necessarily know what they mean, but I believe I’m meant to share them. I received two messages during this prayer service, may I share them?”  Mary threw the question to the group. We looked around, realizing that we were strangers to one another – and none of us had known this man who spoke prior to that morning when the retreat began. I suppose it was mainly curiosity that led the group to give its consent. He said he had a message for another woman in the group, and stated what that was. Then, he turned to me and said, “Jenifer, God says: I have a new path for you. Be ready.”

Given my internal state of panic and fear, I took this message as confirmation that I was, indeed, going to die that night. When we finished the formal activities, the group went its separate ways. I went to my room in the adjoining building, locked the door, turned on every light and took a seat on the bed. I sat up all night, waiting for Death. As I write this, with the perspective of time and distance, and after a great deal of thought and soul-searching, I realize this sounds somewhat dramatic and a little silly. But I am, as earnestly as possible, attempting to convey my experience of that literal “dark night of the soul”.

When morning arrived and there was light outside my room (as well as the electric ones inside it), I had come to a realization. I had a choice to make. I could either change my life, or I could die without ever becoming the person I wanted to be. Which did I fear more? Truth be told, I feared them both. But weighing more than 350 pounds, I knew there was a very real chance of the second coming true. I didn’t know whether I could change my life, but I knew I didn’t want the only “new path” available to be one in the afterlife.

Looking back, I can see that this event was the first in a long string of moments which have allowed me to rebuild my life. I am slow and stubborn, so God has (unfortunately) had to send more than one painful and/or frightening message my way. But I realized, preparing for our presentation this morning, that the one I received on that retreat was absolutely true: God had a new path for me. Each day, one step of that path is revealed. My job is to take that step or learn the painful lessons that come from allowing fear to choose otherwise. Slowly the shape of the path is revealed, and slowly I am preparing myself to be ready for what comes next.

Living the Questions

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

–Ranier Maria Rile

Letters to a Young Poet

 

Be patient toward all that is unsolved within your heart. Yeah, right.

Because patience is something we are all busy cultivating, in this culture of instant gratification. Because patience is something we humans are so good at right from the start – ever been around a young child who wants something? Yes, patience is a virtue we only possess if we actively seek and practice it, because we are not (most of us) born patient.

Lacking patience, how does one live within the questions long enough for the inner self to discern, then make known, the answers? It is not easy. Have you ever had an itch that would not go away, despite extreme bodily contortions to reach and scratch it? Living with the internal itchiness of unresolved questions can be truly uncomfortable. I’ve been given the advice to trust my gut, which is fine if your gut is a trustworthy ally. Mine tends to be a trickster, responding from fear but pretending otherwise. (And then prompting me to eat because food will make me feel better.)

Rilke’s suggestion that, gradually, without realizing it, we might live into the answers someday isn’t particularly comforting. I mean, how are we supposed to move forward without answers?  Steve Jobs, in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, uses the image of connecting the dots. That each decision, each step we take, is a dot. He goes on to say that the dots cannot ever be connected moving forward, they can only be connected looking backward, in retrospect. We have to keep choosing and trust that the dots will connect.

My tricksy gut tells me he’s right. Cultivate the patience to wait for the answers to make themselves known, while trusting that the choices I make in the meantime will connect in a coherent way someday. Remaining where I am because I am afraid to move forward without all the answers, may seem safe. But the truth is, I’m just stuck. To get unstuck, I need to cultivate my inner Wile E. Coyote (from the Roadrunner cartoons). I need to be willing to keep moving forward right off the edge of the canyon into the unknown. Now, Wile E. always looks down, and in doing so loses his faith that he can make it to the other side, causing him to plummet to the canyon floor. That’s where the trust part comes in: take a step and keep going, trusting that I’ll get to the next dot. Because I will. Even when Wile E. Coyote falls, he gets back up and tries again in the next episode.

 

Why random?

I read somewhere that this is Random Acts of Kindness Week. Don’t misunderstand me, I am all for random acts of kindness – paying for the person behind you in line, waiting for the other driver to pull out, leaving a good book on a table for someone else to enjoy.  The other day, I watched some youtube videos showing people standing in European squares with signs saying, “Free Hugs”. The people who took advantage of the offer seemed genuinely pleased to do so. There is no reason to take issue with these small efforts to make another person’s day a little brighter.

The question posed in the title of this post isn’t meant to invalidate those acts. Instead, I’m wondering why we (and by we, I mean I) don’t focus more on kindness as a daily choice within our normal interactions. Most of us are not unkind, but we’re lackadaisical in our daily routines. We get hurried, stressed, defensive, tired…and suddenly, not meaning to, we behave in unkind ways. And those on the receiving end are rarely random strangers.

So this week, I’ve been trying to keep kindness uppermost in my mind. I have committed a few random acts, but I have also really made an effort to express kindness in my interactions with those I see every day. Its is early morning on Wednesday, so I only have two days experience to go on, but so far it has seemed to me that focusing on kindness has opened my days and my heart to experience greater compassion. I’ve given away more hugs, for one, because I’ve seen greater need for them. I’ve been humbled to discover that my first response in some situations has been ungenerous – my second response has invariably been kinder.

I’m not certain that the level of focus devoted this week is sustainable, any more so than any other “awareness campaign” might be. However, if the kindness quotient is raised even a little by devoting attention to it this week, both my world and my own life will be enriched by that.  At least, that is my small, tender hope on this foggy Wednesday morning.

That best portion of a good man’s life; his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.

William Wordsworth

English Poet

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.

Robert M. Pirsig

Author of Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance

Celebrate Love

love is the voice under all silences,

the hope which has no opposite in fear;

the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:

the truth more first than sun more last than star

— e e cummings

 

Today is Valentine’s Day. For many, the day is all about romantic love, which is wonderful and worthy of celebration. However, I want to think about LOVE in its broadest sense, in its many and varied meanings. How, after all, can one little word carry so many ideas, so many definitions, in its four little letters? As the poet, Michael Blumenthal, says in “The Word Love“: a word/I have uttered time and time again/and now hesitate to say at all–/being, as it is, always too much/to stand for what we really mean,/and never enough.

For years, now, the song “Love’s the Only House” by Martina McBride, has been a sort of theme song for me. Not because I know how to love better than anyone else, but because I firmly believe that right action (toward self and others) flows from love. This song reminds me that, every day, I am offered the opportunity to choose from a place of love…or from somewhere else (fear, anger, selfishness, etc.). When I choose from love, I may not choose perfectly, but I do remain whole.

Happy Valentine’s Day!