Is Love All We Need?
I talk to people everyday, a lot. I hope I listen more than I talk, but that’s something others would need to confirm. It’s part of my personality, but it’s also part of my job. Listening and responding.
I’ve always been happy to listen to my kids as they shared their spiritual beliefs, their philosophies, their conflicts, and their daily encounters with other people (sometimes these were/are the best stories). Part of my job as a mother is listening. When I felt the boys needed to know something from my personal experience, I talked. I wonder if I talked too much.
The question, “What are we doing here?” came up with Nat and Owen more than a zillion times over the last 20+ years. More often than not, the answer that resulted was: we’re here to love and be loved. That seems simple, yes? But, is it, really?
I’m finding there are plenty of people who don’t know how to love, who question whether love actually exists, whether they will ever find it, or whether it is more powerful than its nemesis. I don’t know how to respond anymore. I’m having a hard time knowing, even feeling comfortable with my concept of…why we’re here. Yet, LOVE seems the only emotion worthy of my time.
I miss Owen. I miss Nat when I don’t hear from him frequently. I love them, always. The love I feel for my kids does not disappear. It’s the only thing that is an absolute constant. But, then, I’m happy with my definition, my concept, of love. I’m happy with the fact that my relationship with Owen did not end when he died. I’m happy knowing that Nat can feel my love when he’s not within earshot, can’t talk while I listen, can’t listen while I talk, due to time or distance.
Lea and I talked on the phone this morning, and we both felt close to overwhelmed with the question: Why are we here? We’ve spent so many years believing that, yes, I’m going to say it, “Love conquers all.” Yet, we’re not satisfied with what we’re seeing in the strangers on the street. We don’t know them. We don’t see them within the contexts of their families, their jobs, their social settings. And, we don’t see love at work on the streets in ways that are visible to us.
Those of us who have pets say we love them. Do they love us back? Or, do they just need food, water, and our comforting rubs? Nat and Owen loved their many pets over the years. Most of those pets are gone now - pet heaven? Our remaining three cats are the most comforting living souls that greet me when I come home at night. Then, Dave arrives from his evening shift, and I feel there is no question about love. I love him, he loves me back, and I can for a very short time, accept my many losses. I talk with Nat on the phone, and again, I can accept my many losses. Then, I drive through our main street the next morning, and I see the lost souls. And, I question: What are we doing here?
What I see, is anger, frustration, a loss of hope, disillusionment, disappointment, disengagement…fill in all the dis’s you see. Are you seeing love as the thing that is “all we need”? If you are, please comment. Because, frankly, I’m seeing so many pissed-off people now, that love is a concept evading my hopes for our global future. And, I don’t want it to be so.
When Owen loved a song (and he loved tonight’s song), he looked up the guitar tabletures, so he could play the song the way he thought the artist thought it should be played…instead of the way he heard it. They were not always the same. No work of art is the same for us as observers, as the way the artist wrote it, painted it, meant it. I don’t know what websites Owen used most frequently to find his tab sheets. This is just one for tonight’s song: http://www.tabcrawler.com/search.php?show=viewfile&id=479119&letter=b&artist=beatles&tabname=all+you+need+is+love+tab&tabtype=guitar+tab
Song for the night: All You Need is Love, The Beatles (turn this one up, and remember…Owen’s first instrument was the violin…he loved that, and he consternated over its difficulty)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rLxTpsIVzzo
emmitt-owen-riley
linda-siniard
I don’t know if I’d say “All we need is love” or “Love conquers all.” However, I do believe that love is our calling, that to love is the noblest endeavor of our lives, that loving each other means even more when we do so in the face of all the pain, fear, and selfishness.
I used to be an evangelical Christian and then when I became a feminist and got kicked out of my Intervarsity Christian Fellowship group, I underwent some painful questioning about the meaning of life, etc. For me at this point I believe that God is the verb “to love.” In other words, to love is a divine act, it springs from and creates that which is sacred. We must try our best to love one another. Will this act of loving triumph? I don’t know. But that seems to me the wrong question. We can’t save the world. But we can ask yourselves “how can I best act in love today?”
Just my current thoughts….
I don’t know the answer either, Linda. I didn’t realize that Seanna’s love for me, along with her father’s, made my world go ’round until she was gone. I knew it meant the world to me, that it made every effort worthwhile, but that all interest and desire for life would halt in its absence wasn’t something I saw coming.
I have to make up reasons to get out of bed by noon. She was the most fascinating and funny person in my life aside from her father. Life is infinitely less interesting, and I’m not the kind of person who believes in productivity for the sake of itself. The love of life, of being alive, is what makes the world go ’round, I think.
I live in an economically depressed area. The people here are angry, ignorant, unenthused, and all the ‘dis-es’ too. There is no love in their faces that I can see. Love, I think, is what makes the difference between living and merely existing. If I want to live again, I’m going to have to find my way back to enthused loving.
Love may not be all we need, but I’m pretty sure it’s the first thing we need. Love preceeds life.
steph
Love may not be all we need, but we surely need it. I just wrote a blog tonight about women who go to hole-in-the-wall spas and spend their money telling their troubles to immigrant workers, because they have no one else to turn to. They go there, not for a massage or a manicure, but for a feeling of connection to someone, a yearning for sisterhood, without the back stabbing. They pay to be listened to, just like I pay a counselor to listen to me. What is wrong with this picture? Why are we so isolated and alienated from each other? God never meant it to be this way.
I do believe that the real reason we are here is to love God, and love people. We have to find our divine purpose, and if we can, the rest will fall into place. But we are so preoccupied with so many things, much like Martha, in the Bible. She missed the whole visit with Jesus, and He said that Mary had chosen the better part, which was to sit at His feet. Many Christians claim to know God, but they don’t love people. God is Love, and we are to be His presence on this earth. We can’t say we love God, and hate people. So God, show us how to reconnect, how to be a friend that sticks closer than a brother, and how to give of ourselves when someone is hurting. Sometimes the greatest act of love, is to just be there, and listen. Lonnette
There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be… It’s easy.”
That’s the line that has always haunted me, especially the “It’s easy” part.
So John was meant to be in front of the DAKOTA with Micheal David Chapman waiting? … and Owen was meant to be wherever he was when whatever happened, happened? And Daddy was meant to be on that trip/plane and all the others? and It’s easy?
Does it mean just go with it and it’s all a matter of fate?
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE. When you think of love in all its forms. maybe so. Love of each other, love of your work, love of your play. Maybe.
Still “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be”… I guess you could just stay home, but that’s not much of a life. I think I’ll go with the folks that get out even if it means running the risk of being “out there”. Maybe if you don’t get caught up in thinking about it too much…”It’s easy” and when it’s over, maybe what’s next is EASY.
Let’s hope so.
Em
Yes, let’s hope “what’s next is EASY.” It has to be easier than THIS.
It must be time to watch “To Kill a Mockingbird” again.
L.