...the more I ache to love.
Before I clocked in at work yesterday morning, I went into the restroom. On the door were these words: "Kill a Muslim for Christ." To paraphrase a wise teacher, it's wrong to curse a man and/or a flower. I knew there was paint around somewhere, because the door had been painted not long before. So I found it, and painted over the ugliness.
Of course, painting over something has always been but a band-aid.
How are we to heal? And who is "we", anyway? Everything. Every star, every atom, every blade of grass...everyone who dreams or wishes they could.
...the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
--Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning.
From the preface:
Dr. Frankl, author-psychiatrist, sometimes asks his patients who suffer from a multitude of torments great and small, "Why do you not commit suicide?" From their answers he can often find the guide-line for his psychotherapy: in one life there is love for one's children to tie to; in another life, a talent to be used; in a third, perhaps only lingering memories worth preserving.
--Gordon W. Allport.
Frankl spent time in concentration camps, but still wrote of optimism. Not the blind variety, but I think one born of a stubborn refusal to allow one's spirit to be dashed, no matter how the body may be broken..."They may break my bones...to paraphrase Gandhi..."but they cannot destroy my spirit."
Believe in hope. It has something to offer; it enables you to drain the last drop of joy from whatever time you have. Hope that there is something better for you. Hope until it becomes faith. Even if you only have faith for a little at first, the demonstrations in your life will lead to more faith...you can change your life.
--Up Your Bracket, by Dr. H. Frederick Vogt.
If I spend too much time looking at ugliness, I might more readily become immune to what is also beautiful. I might, if not forget, then no longer trust, what I see as beautiful. And maybe that's worse.
My last drop of joy might be nothing more than a remembered song, a half-smile from someone whose name I can't recall; the time when I slumped in a chair, not feeling well, and my great-aunt walked by, and without a word, just put her hand on my cheek; love's touch, you see...
The more hate I see, the more I ache to love. Then after some practice, the more love I see. It ripples.
The love's the thing. It's all about love. Not just what we think of as love, but love inside a bud on my honey locust; somehow it (again) stubbornly pushes its way into the light, along with its brethren. I see a joy there, and yes, a form of love. An exuberance to me undeniable. Young leaves expressing something profoundly simple, yet complex in their seeming desire to just be. Maybe not complex, maybe I just think it is. But I stand under the tree, and it knows me. I gently touch the limbs, fingers light on the green. Love's touch. Never seems to go away.
At 2:45 a.m., a phone call awakens Sandy Goodman. Her 18 year-old son Jason...has been taken to the emergency room...She and her husband arrive at the hospital to find that their son has been electrocuted when he touched a power line hanging near some fire escape stairs. The emergency room door opens...it's the doctor...shaking his head..."I'm sorry...we can't get him back..." ...and the air is sucked out of the room.
--Love Never Dies: A Mother's Journey from Loss to Love, by Sandy Goodman. From the dust jacket.
Hope [Chapter 6]:
When the sun sits down on the mountains
and the clouds turn purple and pink
and golden rays send fingers out to touch me,
I stop breathing and inhale with my heart
because I know
that along those glittering strands of light
lies my connection
to you. --Sandy, 1997