…

Love.

I experienced Love this weekend in a way I never have before.
I hung out with 30 homeless people in Springfield.
I went with a group from my Church community.
20 Junior High kids and 7 adults.

I found Love this weekend.
I found Love in people.
And I discovered that “homeless” is a terrible title to put on people.
They are just people, like you and me.

They may not smell nice.
They may not look the best.
They may not be the friendliest person you meet.
But you know what?

They Love.

They know what Love is.
They long to Love.
They give Love.
They have Love.

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I see love in my family, especially in my grandparents. I see love from looking at people in the shopping malls, in the restaurants, in the schools, in movies, and in the streets.

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I found love in the eyes of people
Through their smile
Through their words
Sincerely warm my heart…

I see smile in the young ones
so innocent and sweet
so adorable and charming
so pure and true…

For whoever you are
I already love you
Even though I haven met with you
You are the one
That i will cherish for my whole life

For whoever my children will be
I already love you
Even though you are not in me yet
You are the reason
Why I lived until today
and anticipate for my future

For everything I do now
Is not for myself
but for my future home
which i will
shower with love
but before meeting up with the right one
it is a time for me to learn
how to love myself…
so
i know.. how to love you all

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it started in a playground during the years of grade school. innocence holding hands and kissing each others cheek. high school had two familiar faces recognize each other from a while back as they next kissed on the lips. she wore his graduation ring until they each departed for different colleges in different states. time erases memories and until they meet again. he was looking for an engagement ring for nobody in particular, but wanted it just in case. the lady behind the counter showed him the best that there was. he noticed a gold ring with a blue stone on her finger that was placed so, so many years ago. “Michael?, is that you?, she said with a familiar look in her eyes. he nodded his head yes as tears rolled down his cheeks. a kiss on the cheek and then on the lips over the counter where time caught up with them again. “I’ll take this ring please” he said to her. “and who is the lucky lady”? she said with a smile. customers and other shoppers watched the event take place as a round of applause echoed through the store. Michael placed it on her finger and she said yes, I do. the old neighborhood was still there as well as the playground where they first met. the bride and groom slid down a see-saw. they kissed on the cheek and then on the lips at a place where we all long to be…

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I’m just taking a moment to think about everything I’ve learned in the past few months about social justice, and for some reason, that Beatles song lyric comes right to mind. I know I might be a little bit “stuck in the sixties” as some might say, but I really think that the Beatles summarized a lot about the world when they sung, “love is all you need.”

After listening to Father Doyle speak on multiple occasions, and reading the texts, particularly The Irresistable Revolution, by Shane Claibourne, I’ve come down to one conclusion. It’s all about love. I’m not saying we all need to run around hugging our neighbors and giving high fives to everyone we meet. I just think it has to do with a respectful and courteous kind of love. A “treat others as you would like to be treated” kind of love.

…..

So maybe I’m just listening to a little too much classic rock, but I really find a message in that simple phrase, “all you need is love.”  I don’t think giving out free hugs is going to fix the economy or instantly create world peace, but I do think just treating the people around you in the same manner that you want to be treated is a pretty good place to start.  And in my eyes, that’s love.

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I was frustrated and angry last night. This was because I was exhausted, really tired, and couldn’t sleep. My stomach hurt, felt terrible, like I just swallowed the (liver gallbladder flush) oil. They say new (old) stones move forward after you flush some out, is this what was happening? I wasn’t sure. So I made myself ginger tea, gave myself an enema, and wrapped wool around me with a hot water bottle on top. After that I crawled in bed with your ‘Anastasia‘ book. I fell asleep like an angel from 4:30am-9:30am. Then I woke up to look at the time (on my mobile phone) and saw that I had a message from you. It lit me up, made me fell inspired and loved. I had a huge smile on my face. I go to check my email and I have a really generous and loving email from my close friend XXXX about experiencing ‘real love’ for the first time. After reading that email I was like, Wow, what am I worried about? This is love, this is support, if this is what I have going for me, I have no need to worry, EVER! -Now take on the day!

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When Ben Greene described his wife, Deborah, as “the stunningly beautiful but somewhat irascible redhead,” it was clear that true love was flowing within the room, throughout the C.E. building of the Ukpeagvik Presbyterian Church, and in all of Barrow.

The Greenes not only have a profound love for each other, but also for the wilderness, which is why they choose to make their home in Alaska. They were living in Anchorage when Ben got the opportunity to move to Barrow and work for the North Slope Borough Planning Department, an opportunity so unusual there was no way he could turn it down.

“After all,” says Ben, “how many people do you know are given the opportunity to live amongst an Inupiat whaling community 300 miles north of the Arctic circle? You get to see a very unique slice of life and you get to participate.” Ben and Deborah have been in Barrow since May.

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Everyone remembers their first love. Looking back, maybe I wouldn’t have called it love, but at the time, it sure seemed like it. It was that funny little feeling I got, that flutter in my stomach that we call butterflies, that fast beating of my heart at the sound of his name, let alone the sound of his voice or the look in his eyes. THAT was what love was to me back then…

And I look back and giggle at that giggling little girl who thought she knew what love was when she was seven years old… and the first boy I loved, his name was Tom and we were in second grade. But then Tom loved Madeline and so I decided to love Richard instead. Three years down that line I fell in love again. I was ten and I liked him as much as he liked me. We even had two messenger friends that went back and forth between us, telling us what the other wanted to say. It was very cute…

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While listening last night to Senator Obama remembering his grandmother, I realized that there was a silent hero in my own past that I need to share. It is a story of love and hate, tragedy and hope. It is a story of a man who until a year ago was a silent aberration within our family. A man who, while we knew that he existed, we never talked about. Indeed, it took me a month of research to discover his name. My goal in writing this is that others will know and remember this man, my silent hero.

booboo08’s diary :: ::

In 1929, my great grandmother was alone. Her husband, who gambled away all of their money had left her alone with five young children. They lived in an old tin chicken coop. The floors were dirt, and my grandmother remembered that when it rained the roof would leak turning the floor to mud that they would in turn have to sleep on in the night.
They lived in rural Grant County, Indiana. Jobs were scarce everywhere in the late 20’s, but great-grandma was lucky. She found a job at a local laundry.

One day, while at the laundry a young man came in. He was doing construction work locally, but the projects had dried up. He hoped to find work there at the laundry. The owner said she really didn’t need any extra help, but would let him fix things up a bit. During this time, my grandmother and this man became very close. After work, he would come home with her and help around the house. Eventually their friendship would grow into more. He was a loving man who took to the other children as if they were his own.

Their love was not without risk. You see this man, Orange Gibson, was a black man. A black man, in one of the most racist areas in the nation, seeing a white woman. Just a few years before, you can imagine the horror that this community must have felt as a man was dragged past complacent guards and hung from a tree in the court yard without trial, because he supposedly raped a white woman. One cannot underestimate the personal risk Orange put himself through to love my great-grandmother.

This relationship could never have come to marriage in this time and in this place. Indeed, I don’t believe that they ever even lived together. Although, they did have my three wonderful aunts.

Orange was a man like many others around this great country. A man who saw a responsibility that was not his and embraced it, a man who saw children without a father and loved them, a man who would have died for the love of a woman. Orange was a hero. So, today with my daughter standing next to me. I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. I voted for all of those silent heroes, including Orange Gibson, without whom, my grandmother may not have survived the depression. I owe Orange so much. He was dead long before I was born, and he lies somewhere in an anonymous grave. I wonder if there is someone to put flowers on his grave, and if anyone stops to say thank you. So, I say it here, now, thank you Orange, thank you for my grandmother, thank you for my daughter. Thank you for this day, for without men like you, where would we all be.

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This is not a sad story. It’s a story of love. Of the possibilities of faith. And the power of friendship. And it’s a story about how none of us is promised anything beyond this moment, and what control we do have is how we choose to live it.

For my mom, the story began about six months ago with a cough that just wouldn’t go away. Then, shortness of breath. Finally, about a month ago, a cancerous mass was found on her left lung.

my mom 66, smoked as a teen-ager, and then again briefly about five years ago. The cancer has spread to the lining of her lungs and into her lymph nodes. Doctors are trying chemotherapy to slow things down, but that’s all it will do. Plainly put, she is dying. But that’s not the way my mom intends to live the rest of her life.

This is just another leg of the journey, she said, and I don’t want it to be about fear. Instead, she said, she wants it to be about growth, and a testament to the love and friendship she said has brightly bloomed in this otherwise dark time.

I would really like to do something nice for my mom., something that i can hold onto and make her feel good. I want to make her queen for a day……………….hugs

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