Kenny Swann: you are ENOUGH. January 28 tiny resolution.

Kenny Swann is another of my unmet friends: an openhearted, social justice loving Christian--sort of like Jesus in that regard, though he would be fully embarrassed by the comparison.  He's brave in the way Jesus was too-- standing up for what is right, not just what is culturally acceptable in the moment. He walks his talk, and inspires me to try to be a better human.  I "met" Kenny through the stories he shared on my Tennessee cousin's social media page.  And boy, does he tell a good story.  He needed some encouragement to guest on this blog.  I am so glad he did.  ---jls

You Are Enough!

A little over a year ago, I made my first trip to Haiti.

I was wrecked. I never knew and maybe never even cared that a world like that existed. After my first trip through the city of Jeremie, my initial reaction was that the best thing for Haiti might require a bulldozer and a start over.

But then I got out of the bus. I discovered a wonderful and loving people with the same desire for a better life for their children that I had. I also discovered that the greatest commodity of any people is HOPE. Hope is hard to come by in a third world country.

One day when a young girl was looking at our pictures on our cell phone, she saw a picture of Santa Claus (they call him Papa Noel in Haiti). She knew who he was, but told us that Papa Noel did not care about Haiti because he never came there. Out of this an idea was born.

I must confess that I am blessed in my old age with a little girth. But I have never grown a beard. So on February 2, 2014 , this Papa started his beard. And on December 14, 2014, Papa Noel went to Haiti!

THE TRIP WAS AMAZING! And I learned two things that I would like to share. I like to call these things ENOUGH.

FIRST: In a land of absolutely NO Santas, ONE Santa is enough. My beard was scraggly, and because I am fat, I had to wear a cooling jacket under a Santa suit in 100 degree weather. Our first visit was in a little place called Bon Bon at an orphanage with 75 kids. After thirty minutes, our number of children swelled to about 300 and they chased our bus for about a mile after we left, shouting and laughing. The length of my beard or the fact that my suit was wet didn't seem to matter.

I learned that even you though you might not be the best bringer of joy, hope, love and laughter, you may well be the only one that some will ever see. So you are ENOUGH! Bring it with all your heart.

SECOND: You have ENOUGH!

On our last night we had a stopover in a rescue orphanage in Port Au Prince. We were only there to eat, sleep and catch a plane the next day. In the course of our meal, a wonderful lady named Miriam Frederick told us about how this place had come to be. They were a rescue orphanage with regular orphans, abused orphans and handicapped orphans. Her heart was heavy because a group had been scheduled to bring Christmas to the children, but had cancelled because of unrest and riots in Haiti.

Our group leader told her we had half a Papa Noel (I had left my pants in Jeremie...long story!) and no candy, but we were willing to do our best after evening devotion was over.  Another group with us at devotion that night had brought some candy canes.  When we took a count, just as in the Bible story of the Loaves and Fishes, we had EXACTLY the right number of candy canes. And so it came to be:  a half-suited Papa Noel with just enough candy shared what may well be the best Christmas he and the children ever had.

You may not be the best equipped, but never doubt in a world of need the love you bring is enough!

I don't know your station in life. I don't know your faith. I don't know your willingness. What I do know is in a world that is short on Joy, Love, Peace and Understanding ....You are ENOUGH to bring these things to others!   

                                                          ---Kenny Swann, Tennessee, January 2015

P.S. Just in case you would like to know:
Miriam Frederick
New Life Children's Home
PO Box 6462
Lake Worth Fl. 33466
"Love has no borders"

Using Others' Eyes to See

Ansel, about 14

Today's quotes: “A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”  --William Shedd

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”  --Anais Nin

This week marked the sixth year since Ansel Reed (poet, reader, social rights activist, hiker) left his too short life on this planet.  He'd only gotten 20 years in.  Born with a rare immune deficiency, he'd had more medical interventions than most octogenarians see in a lifetime.  He packed a lot of adventure into his days.  Sadly, there were many he just didn't have time to get to before his liver failed while he waited for a donor.

I think of Ansel at least once or twice a week.  When I hear poetry recited, I remember the time, not long before he left us, that I visited him in New York as he waited for that liver we all promised was coming.  He'd be feeling cold, or poorly, and would ask me to rub his back.  While I did he would sing to me-- hymns, usually; or recite wonderful odes--Keats, Yeats, Dylan Thomas and Shakespeare.  He had an amazing memory.  He knew his time was short and By God He Was Going To Pay Good Attention.  His eye for detail was astounding, and he had stories to tell. 

When I told him I was coming for a visit and asked what he needed, he said : "Kelp.  Seaweed.   I want to bathe in it and pretend I am in the ocean."  Thanks to a very kind co-op worker I was out the door and on that plane smelling just a bit fishy.  He also requested and received Japanese rice crackers, and he wanted baking soda, coffee filters and a blender, for various Grande Schemes he was craftsying up.   He spent a hundred days at a NY apartment, fighting off bugs when there were livers ready, and trying to be hopeful when he was healthy but there were no livers to be found.  Sadly those two worlds would not collide, and after a time, he called it a day. He seemed much more at peace with it than we were.

I still vacillate between my own peace in knowing he found his, and fury he isn't here to keep stirring up the creativity pot.  What can be done?  We have to accept that he's really gone from this physical life on this place.  We don't have to like it.  But that don't change the facts, Ma'am.

So what to do?  I look for him in others, sometimes-- if I see a particularly high spirited sweet joke-cracking 6 year old, or hear of someone undertaking a physical challenge when they already have one (mountain climbing blind, skiing with Parkinson's, that sort of thing).  Ansel never seemed to let his health stop him, whether he was running a marathon or fighting for social justice.   When I see that spirit in others, his own spirit is very present to me. 

And I use his eyes to view the world.  I see something beautiful and think, "Ansel would have liked that."  Knowing him changed me some, and changed what I see in the world.  He gave me a bit of his vision.

That's one way others live in us.  They give us new eyes and perspectives.  And we honor their short visits when we notice what they might have noticed.  It's not enough, but it's a lot.

Jana

Your brain on love

One who wants to do good, knocks at the gate; one who loves, finds the door open.

Rabindranath Tagore

There are all kinds of ways to love and all kinds of reasons to do it.

I just saw one of the best films I've seen in years.  I've embedded it for you here.  Thanks to A (who fiercely loves) for the tip.                          ---Jana

Hate Valentine's Day? Read This..

Corvallis's First Alternative co-operative's a great place to fall in love with healthy eating, local foods and community sustainability.  They also publish a monthly newsletter, where I read this wonderful column by staffer Dave Williams.  He agreed I could reprint it here for those of you who don't get The Thymes.  Although it's aimed at singles, there's great advice for all of us this Valentine's day:

It’s once again time for the holiday that so many people seem to loathe.  Whether you’re lonely, just had a breakup, allergic to chocolate (I’m so sorry for you), or despise sappy movies, just remember: you define how you celebrate your holidays… and not just your holidays, but all of your days in general. You’re writing your own calendar here, folks, so if you don’t like a tradition or ritual, create your own and enjoy every moment of it!

I’m going through some huge transitions in my own personal life, but have decided to embrace the positive. I’m striving to show my gratitude and appreciation to all of the lovely, lovely souls I like to keep so close to me as opposed to closing myself off from them. This goes for all of my relationships and not just my love life. I am attempting to keep an open heart and mind this year, and I feel it necessary to show my love and excitement for my friends and family this Valentine’s more than to potential romances. I say, for those of us who are single, let’s send “Pal-entines” and appreciate the many, many wonderful people in our lives who make us smile. Let’s embrace our future with these people and learn to laugh and enjoy even the sappiest of holidays together rather than dreading them, or feeling any sort of inadequacy. We are all bright entities. If you are single, then I want you to take a moment to feel completely empowered.  Feel your inner, personal strength and energy that is completely unique to your spirit, and your spirit alone.  Send yourself a love letter. Learn to love yourself in new and unexpected ways, for previously undiscovered reasons, and then do the same for your closest friends or family members. Send postcards. Send small, homemade gifts. Make everyone you know a mix CD and let them hear the music that keeps you dancing throughout the day… the music that touches and moves you. Love everyone, including your ex-partners and antagonists. Transform your negative relationships into positive and ongoing experiences. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Do your best. Keep everyone, absolutely everyone, close to your heart. If we do this together, we will truly feel love on even the most seemingly isolating holidays of the year.

Love life.

Dave Williams,

Outreach Assistant

(reprinted with permission from the Feb 2012 edition of First Alternative Thymes)

Give Yourself to Love

Kate Wolf was a luminous singer-songwriter.  Her intimate and emotional lyrics and clear voice captured and opened hearts.   Her song "Give Yourself To Love" was a powerful revelation and personal anthem for many in the 70s.  She was initially surprised at her impact on listeners, but later wrote:
       "Sometimes we just can't find the words, but we all have those same feelings. You feel these things, and you don't think it's okay to say them, or you can't quite get the words, and then it comes, and it's just this breaking loose: you have a way to say it."  
         Kate died young, at 44.   Before she left, she said:
        "I live for a sense of a feeling of purposefulness in this world, you know, that I could stop my life at any point and feel that my life has been worthwhile; that the people I've loved and my children have all reached a point where their lives are now going to come to fruit. And as far as something I live by, it's to try to be as alive as possible and feel free to make my mistakes and try to be as honest as I can with myself."
         Today marks another birthday for me.  I know I have many less in front of me than behind, though how many is anybody's guess.  I've been a little hunkered down, not communicating well or accepting invitations from friends and family.   
        The last two weeks I've been astounded by the showering of love and kindness of friends.  It's softened my heart, and reminded me that while we are here, for however long, we can to give ourselves to love.
        Here's a beautiful video my friend Marilyn shared.  Unfortunately I can't figure out how to embed this one, so you'll have to click the link.  I hope you will, and that you'll take a few minutes today to let someone know the difference their love has made in your world.  
http://www.wimp.com/simplybeautiful/

The Right To Love and Commit

This month, New York became the most recent and most populous state to allow same-sex marriages.  The Senate vote was close, 33-29, and is already being challenged in court.   Republican Senator Mark Grisanti, who ran for office on an anti-gay platform,  came in with late support.  “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.”  "I was wrong" to oppose those rights, he said.
    It takes courage to admit that.  Even former vice-president Dick Cheney has come around to publicly stating that "freedom means freedom for everyone" when asked his position on gay marriage.  Would that Obama be so brave. 
     We are a country built on slowly figuring out and correcting our mistakes-- slavery, child labor, women's rights to name a few.  We talk a big talk about equality, but we are easily threatened by change.  
This week I am missing the wedding of a dear friend.  She's in Canada, and her celebration occurs on the tail end of my already-spent vacation, and as much as I regret not being part of it, I couldn't make it.  She'd asked me months ago if I could be her celebrant, but while gay marriage is legal in Canada, my officiant credentials aren't.  I spoke with her last week and asked her to tell me something about her beloved.  "She was my first love, and is my forever love".  Although they'd met many, many years ago, it hadn't occurred to Lois at the time she could ever be with the love of her life.  How things change.  How good that they do.  
     I don't get the fear over gay marriage. What's so scary about love and commitment?  I've heard some arguments that frankly seem ludicrous to me.  It threatens straight marriages?  I don't see how.  I've seen a lot of straight marriages threatened by other heterosexuals, but not gays.   Marriage is for procreation?  Then I guess we should nullify all couples who can't or choose not to have children.  In the New Testament, Jesus says nothing against homosexuality.  While there's a few (6-7) verses against homosexuality in the Old Testament, there are also admonishments against engaging in everything from shellfish ingestion to mixing fibers in fabric. (For a humorous take on this, see the infamous "Letter to Dr. Laura").
I do fear angry, constricted people who impose their agendas on others.  I am much more threatened by the Anders Behreing Breiviks of the world than the couple featured in the video below. Love expands.  Fear contracts.  Let's grow.
       "We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity." 
— Malcolm X
 

Fading Blues II: Understanding and Addressing Depression

  "I feel so ashamed."  "It's ridiculous I should be so unhappy.  Others have it so much worse." "I shouldn't be so weak".
     These are common comments in my office made by persons in the throes of depression.  Because it is a mood disorder, and because people assume moods  have causal links to what's happening in their lives, depression leaves people bewildered when they cannot link the feelings to situational events.  Even when they can, the other common depressive ruminations (guilt, hopelessness and helplessness) reinforce a very personal responsibility for the symptoms.
 "I feel like a burden."
"I should be able to handle this."
"I'm broken."

These thoughts are symptoms that arise from the disorder.

When one has a fever, one doesn't usually think "I shouldn't be so hot."  A person with Type 1 diabetes doesn't tell themselves or their doctor "I really should have my pancreas under better control."  But when our brains are screwing up, we take it really personally.  We confuse our mind/soul/personality with our brain.  And we think we are supposed to be in charge of it.

The brain is an organ; a very complicated one. It interlinks with a intricate endocrine system over which we have little conscious control.  That system tells our body such things as "wake up", "be energetic", "get drowsy".   In his Feb 2011 New Scientist article "Days of Wonder", Roger Highfield charts the mysteries of the complicated chemical factory that is our human body as it goes about an average day.  From the moment we wake up, when perifornical orexin neurons start our day by alerting the sympathetic nervous system to get going, to the time we ready for sleep and the dark triggers a chemical dose of drowsiness to quiet the system, hundreds of complex biological processes are happening.  Like Japan's nuclear power plants, there are dozens of redundant mechanisms to prevent the inevitable mishaps from collapsing us.  And like Fukushima, sometimes there are enough failures of those mechanisms that there are catastrophic results.

In depression, there is many potential failures (or more benignly, design issues) that can happen.  As psychiatrist Jim Phelps explains (buy his book already!), "A big part of depression is a single gene."
A person no more chooses to carry this particular gene than the one for say, hairy knuckles or that one that makes your pee smell funny after you eat asparagus.

Other things that can increase likelihood a person has a depressive episode are as varied as season and latitude, daylight savings time (!), hormonal changes (pregnancy and postpartum, menstrual cycles,  and menopause for women), and medication (including some you'd never think of-- even certain antibiotics, such as Cipro).  The linked list doesn't include antihistamines, which seem to cause depressive symptoms for me.  Every body is different.  If you notice you have a consistent negative response to a medication, consider reporting that to the FDA here.   These anecdotal reports add up and make a difference if there are enough of them.  I remember back in the day it was commonly thought that there was no such thing as a withdrawal syndrome for folks on antidepressants.  It wasn't until enough people complained to FDA and doctors that they were having serious issues that guidelines for slow tapering of SSRIs became common.

A more obvious causal relationship can be made for depression in a person who has been through one or a series of traumatic or stressful events.  Even then, it is likely the physical response of the body's bombardment with stress chemicals that explains the lethargy, mental fogginess and emotional reactivity of severe depression, not just the psychological effects.

How can you mediate the body's reaction to these difficulties?  There are a few straight-forward paths to wellness, whether your symptoms are aches of the physical or psyche:

1. Practice good sleep/wake habits  to support the endocrine system's ability to do its complex job.  
2. Minimize late night light and get a reasonable amount of daily fresh air and sunshine.
3. Eat well:  adequate nutrition is essential for good mental health.
4. Exercise is neurogenerative. There are dozens of studies showing its benefit to mental well-being.
5. Social connection is very predictive of happiness.   Depression encourages withdrawal.  While reflection is good to a point, don't isolate.  Find ways to increase community.  If you are too shy or depressed to go out, at least go online, and find a support group/chat where you can connect with others.
6.  Count your blessings.  Pay attention to what is going well in your life and keeping a journal of gratitudes.
7. Address the unproductive inner focus by finding ways of being in service. 
8. Find and practice ways of giving your life meaning.
9. Develop a spiritual discipline that supports compassion to self and others.
   
10. Learn to recognize depressive cognition (thoughts) as symptoms rather than reality.
11. Minimize your exposure to avoidable stresses as you would to secondary smoke. 
12. When stress is unavoidable, learn ways to decrease its impact through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, meditation, prayer, focused distraction, creativity or other means.

As always, click on highlighted links for more information.

Cheers from the Crowd

 Happy Valentine's Day.  Here's your own personal love-fest-valentine from Danielle Laporte, a women who blogs with the byline: "Because Self Realization Rocks".  Thanks to my sisters for the tip.

The Manifesto of Encouragement

And now a brief pause in the Sturm und Drang for: LOVE!

 Happy almost valentine's day!
What the world needs is more love and less paperwork. --Pearl Bailey.
This is one of my favorite holidays-- a chance to love it up.  Don't be fooled by the commercials.  V day isn't just for lovers or to sell stuff.  It's a great excuse to think about love in all its wonderful variations, and to show it to those who engender it in you.
Most years I make valentines; this year's were made last night late and won't get mailed until tomorrow.   Or maybe next week.  I'm a lousy mailer.  But February is the longest shortest month there is, so I am happy to drag out the love-fest.  Mine are pretty simple: a quote and a picture glued to a piece of pretty paper. Sometimes I add some paint and glitter.  This year I am being a minimalist.

If you haven't made a valentine yet ,this year's quote batch is  below.   Go ahead, let someone know you love them.
xox, Jana

We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. 

~Author Unknown

Must, bid the Morn awake!
Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's.
For that good bishop's sake
Get up and let us see
What beauty it shall be
That Fortune us assigns.
~Michael Drayton

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. 

~William Shakespeare

Many are the starrs I see, but in my eye no starr like thee.

 Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. 

 ~Albert Einstein

kisses are a better fate
than wisdom.
~e.e. cummings

Who, being loved, is poor? 

Oscar Wilde

Without love, what are we worth?  Eighty-nine cents!  Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely. 

 ~M*A*S*H, Hawkeye

Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat. 

 ~Ben Hecht

Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. 

 ~Henry Van Dyke

Take away love and our earth is a tomb. 

 ~Robert Browning

Are we not like two volumes of one book? 

 ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. 

 Zora Neale Hurston

We don't believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack. 

Marie Ebner Von Eschenbach

I love thee - I love thee,
'Tis all that I can say
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day.
~Thomas Hood

Love, and a cough, cannot be hid. 

 ~George Herbert

Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before. 

 ~Mignon McLaughlin

Poetry spills from the cracks of a broken heart, but flows from one which is loved.  ~Christopher Paul Rubero

Tell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain,
Unravelled from the tumbling main,
And threading the eye of a yellow star: -
So many times do I love again.
~Thomas Lovell Beddoes

The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of. 

~Blaise Pascal

At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. 

 ~Plato

Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold. 

 ~Zelda Fitzgerald

Ah me! love can not be cured by herbs.  ~Ovid

Soul meets soul on lovers' lips. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Who would give a law to lovers?  Love is unto itself a higher law. 

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

Candle light, moon light, star light,
The brightest glow is from love light.
Grey Livingston

A baby is born with a need to be loved - and never outgrows it. 

 Frank A. Clark

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. 

Rose Franken

Love is like dew that falls on both nettles and lilies. 

Swedish Proverb

It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves. 

John Bulwer

Love is not singular except in syllable.  Marvin Taylor

Love is the poetry of the senses.  ~Honoré de Balzac

True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights.  If you hear bells, get your ears checked.  ~Erich Segal

Love is what you've been through with somebody.  ~James Thurber

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. 

~William Shakespeare

My heart to you is given:
Oh, do give yours to me;
We'll lock them up together,
And throw away the key.
~Frederick Saunders

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.  ~Pablo Picasso

Give me a kisse, and to that kisse a score;
Then to that twenty, adde a hundred more;
A thousand to that hundred; so kisse on,
To make that thousand up a million;
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kisse afresh, as when we first begun.
~Robert Herrick, "To Anthea (III)"

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination. 

~Voltaire

Love is metaphysical gravity.  ~R. Buckminster Fuller

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden. 

Claudia Ghandi

"Each moment of a happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life."

 Aphra Behn

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."

Dr. Seuss

"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."

Robert Heinlein

"Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence."

-Vincent van Gogh

"A life without love is like a year without summer." -Swedish Proverb

"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."

 -Author Unknown

"Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart." -Author Unknown

"Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs." -William Shakespeare

"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved." -Victor Hugo

"Love is the only gold."

Lord Alfred Tennyson

"To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven." -Karen Sunde

"Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!"

 Thomas Hood

"When love is not madness, it is not love."

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."

Albert Einstein

"Many are the starrs I +see, but in my eye no starr like thee."

“I never knew how to worship until I knew how to love."
Henry Ward Beecher

"To love another person is to see the face of God."
-Les Miserables

"Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition."
-Alexander Smith

"The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time."
-Lawrence Durrell

“Very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love."
Stendhal

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."
Thoreau

"Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it."
Dr. Karl Menninger

"To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best."
William M. Thackeray

"Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart."
Unknown

"Within you, I lose myself. Without you, I find myself wanting to be lost again."
Unknown

Attention is the most basic form of love, through it we bless and are blessed.
John Tarrant

Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.
Nicholas Sparks

Love doesn't make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
Elizabeth Browning

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.

Voltaire

 
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov

Love is the greatest refreshment in life.
Picasso

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods.
Plato

When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out.
Elizabeth Bowen

One who wants to do good, knocks at the gate; one who loves, finds the door open.

Rabindranath Tagore

600 hundreds kinds of love

Beautiful day here in the heart of the valley.  Hiked Bald Hill in what should be the afternoon; ended up walking down at dark-thirty, making lots of noise so as  not to be cougar bait.  Later, stopped at the local LDS church, where the Community Nativity Festival was in the last hours of its three day run.  In its 16th year, the free event hosts over 600 creches made of everything from rolled up recycled newspaper to fine porcelain and metals. There were interpretations of the birth of Jesus from every country, and in some, the characters wore the clothing or had the facial features of the region of the artist.  Some of the creches were mass produced series, some handmade originals; each was meaningful enough to someone that it was purchased or given.  There were "Precious Moments" nativities and at least 4 (!) manger scenes in which every character was a snowperson,  There were even all frog and all dog scenes.  But no matter how serious, whimsical, downright silly or highfalutin' the creation, each seemed a message of adoration and unconditional love.

Some people have some pretty specific ideas about religion, and I am fine to let them have them. We do the best we can understanding big pictures with our individual, fully human minds.   I do believe strongly in the law that informs all faiths-- the law of love.

This week, I saw our town come together in love to support a faith community that was targeted by an arsonist.  The day before, a youth who had occasionally attended there had allegedly plotted a terrorist attack in Portland.  The local mosque and others in the Islam community quickly condemned his actions, pointing out  it was not in keeping with tenets of the faith.  However, many commenting online about the incident seemed to confuse the actions of the individual with all people of Muslim identity or from Islamic nations. Some called for expulsion of all immigrants; others accused all Muslims of violent intent.

I was glad to see that here in our town, hundreds turned out on a very cold and rainy night to show support and love for the hate crime against one of our own.  Rabbi Barnett spoke of the need to bring light of hope against fear and hate.  Quakers and other Christians prayed for peace and understanding.  Mohammed Siala, an imam at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center, thanked the crowd for coming from the warmth of their home to show the warmth of their hearts.  He asked all to release anger and to embrace love and compassion that could be “stronger and more powerful than the might of evil."

Let the bigness of love be stronger this season than fear.