Posts Tagged ‘love.’

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All You Need is Love


2010
06.20

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Posted in Essays about Life, General | 5 Comments »

I’m exploring the topic of LOVE for Coach Dian’s blog challenge. Everyone has been invited to discuss in any way at all one of the twelve subjects this particular art installation (click on “art installation” to find out what it is) addresses, plus a thirteenth added by Dian. The art installation itself is from a Burning Man festival, and asks us to what do we pledge allegiance, learning to see with new eyes and act with new vision in the web of life.  The theory is that if enough people turn their attention to one or another of these qualities, maybe change can be effected.  So far I’ve talked about courage and intention, and for another blog challenge, bliss.  Now for love.

The Beetles said, “All you need is love.”  Were they right? If you listen to the lyrics of almost any pop or country song, love – especially unrequited love or lost love – is all there is to sing about.  It’s like every song is the same song.  The same is true of books – every book is the same book about life, just expressed in different settings with different characters and plot development.  In fact, instead of “all you need is love,” it seems like love, while desirable, messes things up – at least love as we commonly view it.

It must say something about the importance of understanding life and love that we listen to music and read books that can be boiled down, at their essence, to almost the same topic.  I suppose because there are endless variations on love and life, and they both involve each of us, we are endlessly interested.  There’s a variation of love going on right outside my window at this very moment.  Froggie love.  Our backyard pond is outside my window and a frog is croaking; then there seems to be a corresponding “plopping” sound, as well as croaks that might fit a category of desire.  Of course I can’t go outside to look because it would ruin everything.  Although my husband and I did go out earlier to find frogs, and we saw this cute little guy heading for the bushes, I hope to eat lots of insects.  Now I’m hoping for lots of tadpoles.

Can love be distilled down to a universal truth? Are the longing, mournful, sad, or happy, joyous and euphoric lyrics about love as  universal truth? I don’t think so.  They are about longing, desire, sex, the idea that the next thing that happens will be the one that sets your life to rights.

Just yesterday, I attended two events that I think define love as it should be, love as a concept that we can pledge allegiance to, and love that can change the world.  Because love isn’t reproduction, infatuation, sex, romance, and it’s not that tingling feeling you get right down to your fingertips when you have physical contact with that one desirable person.  Those are all lovely things, but love is broader than all that.  The first event, a graduation, describes it perfectly.

My dear friend Michael, whom I love deeply, was graduating from a two-year intensive program to be a practitioner at Agape International Spirit Center. Agape is the Greek word for unconditional love.  Through intense self-examination, many essays, and weekly classes, Michael, as a practitioner, can now engage in prayer sessions with people who request that service.  In essence, it’s counseling through self-examination and love.  So Mark and I drove to Los Angeles for his graduation.  This is what we saw.

We saw a sanctuary with walls covered with spiritual images – from Jesus to mandalas to Buddha, from images of Judaism and Hinduism to pictures of nature.  In other words, we had entered an inclusive environment.  Love is inclusive.  Love doesn’t have the energy to waste on exclusion.  We heard Reverend Michael speak, and he referenced God – or “whatever it is you call God, or the universal spirit, ” etc. – in other words, inclusive of beliefs from the traditional to spiritual to any notion you might have of a unifying force.

My Michael had been elected by his class to speak.  As he approached the stage, the spotlight shone on him as if he was a heavenly creature of some sort.  It was just the spotlight – but it created an image of love.

He was received with love.  Love for who he is, happiness that he was speaking – and if there was any jealously or resentment that he was the speaker, it was not evident. He gave a wonderful speech with just the right mix of humor, reverence, thankfulness, and love.

Reverend Michael approached his own remarks without negativity.  He spoke of what graduates had discovered about their strengths and their opportunities for improvement – not their weaknesses.  That may be a small thing – but really, it’s not, because negativity drains us of creativeness, forward movement, and love.  Wouldn’t you rather have an opportunity for improvement than a weakness?

Now, I’m not getting all sappy or anything.  I wasn’t amongst perfect people who float through the week leaving love and peace in their wake.  It’s just interesting to be in an environment where everyone is aiming for that ideal; to be in a place whose very premise is love and peace and inclusion among all faiths, races, nationalities, political leanings – in other words, a place where everyone just gets along.  That doesn’t seem too much to ask, does it? Couldn’t we call that love?

If we could all pledge our allegiance to that kind of love – a peaceful, accepting, inclusive love, and go about our business in that vein – imagine the change we could bring about.

I took a picture of Michael afterwards with Reverend Michael, and when my daughter saw it she said, “I know that guy.  I saw him on Oprah.  I really liked him.”  Apparently he was on Oprah talking about Proposition 8, the California initiative that banned gay marriage.  Which, of course, he thought was a very bad idea – a very divisive, exclusionary, hateful proposition.  He spoke about all the ways the Bible does not ostracize or speak against homosexuality. But Prop 8 passed.  I have to say, personally, that I don’t understand why anyone would meddle in anyone’s private life.  That is definitely not about love.

This next picture is of Michael with the Practitioner who helped him through his studies.  This is what love should be – just sincere joy and pleasure with and in the other person.

The graduation certainly set the stage for thinking about love as it should be – love as inclusion and peace.  That’s doesn’t mean we have to like everyone, but it would sure make life easier if we didn’t waste effort on not liking someone.

Graduation over, we drove back up to Bakersfield (takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours) for our oldest granddaughter’s Sweet 16 birthday party.

All nine of my grandchildren are equally special and amazing individuals, all with distinct personalities.  But I’ll just talk about Ali, the oldest, because it was her birthday and that, together with the graduation, tied in so well to love as it should be.

Ali is beautiful and brilliant.  She is also a person who doesn’t know how to exclude anyone.  Who truly does not have a mean, spiteful, jealous bone in her body.  She must have been born that way, but I know she has deep insights for her age on human nature and has spent enough time observing to form her character in the direction she chooses.

Watching Ali open her gifts was an atypical gift-opening experience.  She took the time to read, enjoy and appreciate every single card – and there were dozens of them – and gift.  She looked at and thanked each person.  She was equally as joyful at finding her favorite gum as she was at finding substantial cash.

You can see the kindness in her face. 

This exhibited to me what love is and should be – just like the morning’s graduation: inclusiveness, joy with every effort, gift or accomplishment, kindness.  How could this kind of behavior fail to spread peace among all peoples and be the true nature of love?

This pure happiness is love.  Ali is holding up a picture Jackson sent for her birthday (or Jackson’s mom, my daughter Karen sent).  Apparently it is a dinosaur brain.  Jackson’s almost five, and dinosaurs are very much on his mind, so what more precious drawing could he make?

I’ve probably run on enough about this.  The Beetles are right. All you need is love.  Love that embraces, includes, celebrates everyone.  Behavior that leads to peace.  It would be hard to kill someone whom you celebrated, wouldn’t it? War might disappear.  Don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon, but the more of us that join the positive force, the sooner it will happen.  For me, that’s love.

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For Mothers, About Mothers, on Mother’s Day


2010
05.08

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Posted in Essays about Life | 3 Comments »

I just read a book, a memoir by Mary Karr called Lit.  Silly me, I thought the title must be a reference to literature (she is an author and poet, after all) – until I got into the book and found out Karr was just that – lit – for much of her adult life.  The book relentlessly chronicles her struggles with herself, which manifest in substance abuse.  In adulthood, that substance was alcohol.

She came by her struggles honestly, with a childhood and parents that would challenge anyone to doubt him or herself and the seemingly fragile world. That Karr can write so engagingly, un-self-consciously, and honestly about her family is a testament to her skill as a writer.  It was probably also a form of therapy.

But this isn’t a book review.  Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so this post is about mothers.  Karr’s mother was complex and frightening.  She had a razor-sharp mind but an unconventional way of approaching parenting.  She encouraged her daughter Mary to do anything she wanted, even when it was clearly dangerous and inappropriate.  Karr’s mom was under the influence most of the time until she achieved sobriety later in life.  She came and went abruptly, leaving her daughters to wonder if they’d see her again.  She locked herself in the bathroom with a gun threatening to kill herself.  She appeared in front of her daughter with a butcher knife threatening to kill her.

Karr’s mother was so extreme that you’d say someone like her could never exist – except she did.  You never doubt the complete honesty of Karr’s writing.

You’d expect a child to shut a mom like that out of her life, but the tie between mother and child isn’t that simple.  Even if you think you’ve cut yourself off, broken the ties, buried the past or the truth – you haven’t.  Karr’s stuggle with substance abuse was as much her struggle with her mother, both her parents, integrating them somehow into her universe with understanding and love in spite of being totally (the F word would be appropriate here) screwed up by them.

Such is love.  We all struggle with our mothers one way or another.  Probably because the hardest thing to do is give someone permission to be him or herself.  When my first child was born, my mom said, “Don’t expect me to babysit and go to recitals and be that kind of grandma, because I’m not.”  I don’t remember being unduly upset, maybe because we lived across the country from each other.  I did resent it on the few occasions I really did need her help.  But I think I realized that Mom knew herself and what she was capable of.  She was a wonderful mother to us, but she’d done her time and knew her limits.

That’s what I mean by allowing someone to be herself.  It didn’t matter what I wanted or thought; what mattered was what Mom knew she could do.  It was up to me to understand that because I can’t control my mom or anyone else, I can only control my reactions.  I’m much better than I used to be about choosing the easy way out for myself – which means not stressing about something I can’t change.

Somehow Karr kept seeking that relationship, keeping her mother in her life, and gave her loving care at the end of her life.  They did achieve peace with each other and reached an understanding.

When I finished the book, I was stunned.  I wouldn’t have thought there was a way in the world that anyone could accept and love a mother like that.  Underneath it all is the realization of what Mother means – and unless we come to terms with our mothers and let them be who they are, we won’t really have peace.  We need our mothers, figuratively as well as in reality.

I’m so lucky.  My mom is am amazing woman.  Now, as she’s in and out of dementia, but always diminished, I have to fight sometimes to remember this is MOM.

Tomorrow when I give her her Mother’s Day card and gift, she’ll be confused.  She’ll read the card several times, not quite realizing that she just saw it.  She’ll know it’s a good thing to receive cards and loving thoughts, but she may not remember it’s hers.  In fact, I’m not giving a gift – just a card and a plant.  Gifts confuse Mom now.  She can’t remember why she has them and keeps trying to give them back to the proper person, not knowing she is the proper person.  The plant’s in a really cool basket, but she’ll take it out and then try to give the basket to someone, asking each child and grandchild in turn as they visit, “Is this yours?”

I’m hanging on to Mom as long as I can.  The urgency of that thought, and this entire post, was prompted by a quote in Lit.  Karr starts each chapter with a quote from a poet or author, and this one by Nabakov clobbered me with the need to understand it:

They are passing, posthaste, posthaste, the gliding years…The years are passing, my dear, and presently no one will know what you and I know.

I don’t want Mom to pass without anyone knowing what she knows.  She’s not going to tell me anymore, however. I have to know by keeping Mom present as fully as possible.  Soon it’ll be my turn to recite those lines.  I hope my children will have given me the gift of accepting me for who I am (I believe they already do), as their children will do for them.  And so it continues, that line of mother and child, mother and child, that can’t be broken no matter how hard we or our moms may try.  We cannot sever the links nor, ultimately, the love.

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#Best09 – The Gift I Gave Myself that Keeps on Giving? Time with the Grandkids – An Update


2009
12.26

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I’m updating yesterday’s blog post with three new photos.  These are from last night – Christmas at our house with our three kids, their husbands, and the nine grandkids.  This is the gift I gave myself that keeps on giving – time with this precious group of people

All the grandkids are here – The Bakersfield Six and The Colorado Three.  The Colorado group is the three littlest in front.

All of us – the gift that keeps on giving.  We blessedly like each other and love to be together.

I love this picture – the two little girls in red looking closely at the package their dresses are covering up.

Below is the entry before I updated with the photos.  Sorry – I was just too tired to put them in last night.

Gwen Bell’s Best of Blog challenge question for Christmas day is “What’s a gift you gave yourself this year that kept on giving?” At first, this was hard.  Partly it was hard because after a hectic and traumatic month, it seems I can barely remember yesterday.  But this morning, first at one daughter’s house and then the other, opening gifts with the grandkids, it was obvious.  It was the gift of time with the grandchildren this summer.  Mostly I’m talking about the Bakersfield Six.

I going to reference some older posts so you’ll know what we did to make the summer special.  You can look at The Bakersfield Six Plus One, or A Grandmother’s Dream to see photos and read about the beginning of the journey to the cabin this summer – just me and The Bako Six.  Then Glamberts, Treasure Hunts, Jean Luc Picard and Tie-dyed Shirts continues that adventure.  I had planned a very busy five days full of adventure and the best part was the FUN – so much fun and laughter!

We also went to the American Idol’s concert together – at least the girls and I did.

21 People at Disneyland is a new chapter – and finally, something I guess I didn’t blog about, the Roar and Snore.  I took the grandkids to a sleepover at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and it was such incredible fun that I should blog about it – but now, just take my word.  Here’s a post talking about some collages I made from those experiences.

Also, check out the animal photo gallery on my webpage to see some of what we saw.  BUT to continue…

I make some mini-photo books as Christmas presents for each of the grandkids because the summer was so special, and as they opened them today and we relived the adventures I realized that all the time and effort I put into being a grandma is paying me back a hundred fold.  The memories will live forever – if not in my mind, at least on paper and in photographs to refresh my mind!  Love and laughter made the memories.

This gift will give forever.  It’ll give past my lifetime and well into the next generations as my grandkids make the same kinds of memories with theirs.  Family, love and laughter.  The best gift ever and always.

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Happy Thanksgiving Art Every Day Month #26


2009
11.25

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Posted in Art, General | 3 Comments »

I’m thankful for a happy home, good friends, family – all the usual.  What I’m most thankful for is that I can call such things “the usual.”  So many people can’t. It can always get better, though.  One of my closest friends recently went through a bout with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  Finally, she had a stem cell transplant and so far, all systems are go.  What’s remarkable about my friend Wendy is that she asked that no one send food, flowers, or gifts.  Instead she asked that they do acts of kindness.  Since Wendy has hundreds and hundreds  of dedicated friends all over the world, many acts of kindness were done and continue to be done.  Sometimes something as small as letting a car cut in ahead of you, or paying for the person behind you in the Starbucks line, can change a person’s day or even attitude.  You don’t have to change the world - Mother Teresa said you fill the ocean drop by drop – but you can help the people in it smile and relax and then turn around and do something for someone else.    So I’m going to try to show my thankfulness by being mindful of those around me and the little things I can do.

Here is today’s journal entry.  The Happy House.

journal 008