Spirit of love

You will find as you look back upon your life
that the moments when you have really lived,
are the moments when you have done things
in a spirit of love.

Henry Drummond

The essence of Valentine’s Day is love . . .
only a part of it is romance.

One of the many aspects of love and
most beautiful is giving in the spirit of love.

That is what Valentines Day means to me.

It is giving . . . not of material things necessarily.

One of my fondest memories of childhood was exchanging and sharing Valentine Cards with my schoolmates. We all came to school with our little bags of colorful “Be My Valentine” wishes . . . one of my first recollections of giving and sharing associated with love, not romance . . . that was the spirit of love.

I’ll never forget what someone did for me when JR died . . . and to this day I don’t know who did this sweet thing for me. I asked everyone I knew . . . they obviously wanted to remain anonymous. Every day without fail for the longest time, someone left freshly cut flowers at my door. 

It didn’t matter where it came from . . . it was the most awesome random act of kindness I have ever experienced. In those dark days, the flowers and what they meant to me was just about the only thing that would bring a smile to my face. That was the spirit of love . . . unselfish compassion for someone hurting, in need of a smile and knowing that someone cared.

Simple things . . . like cutting an elderly neighbor’s grass or cooking a meal for them, just because . . . most seniors are on a fixed income and little things add up monetarily.

In the spirit of love, do something nice for someone less fortunate than yourself . . . not just for Valentines Day.

Do you recollect your fondest “spirit of love” moments?

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An open heart in a sad world

Dealing with the death of a close friend has been a difficult endeavor this week. Grief is an emotion that is the most difficult that I have ever encountered in my life and no matter how many times I have had to cope and go through these feelings, it seems to become more difficult.

Since JR died six years ago, four people that I was close to in my life have passed away. Every time I have tried to play the mind game of the “celebration of their life”. Sure, I celebrate the life of everyone who has touched my life . . . but the ones who are gone . . . they have vanished from this earth in the blink of an eye. One of my biggest problems on this earth is coming to terms with death . . . it freaks me out when those close to me disappear from my life.

As a Christian with strong faith, death should not be a problem that I have to deal with so emotionally. It is a fact of life that we all have to face . . . and it happens every day. Death never stops, just as birth doesn’t stop . . . life evolves. My death does not scare me at all . . . the problem is the death of those close to me.

The world as we know it becomes sadder by the day . . . I am slowly getting away from listening to the news. My heart is always open and I have been blessed with way too much compassion for human suffering. Death is one thing, the end of suffering for the person who died, but suffering in its many forms . . . there is a burden in my heart for the problems unfolding before our very eyes.

Although I needed to verbalize what was going through my head tonight, I also have faith in mankind. The problems our society is experiencing is the tip of an iceberg, the suffering has just begun . . . but I believe it will make us less selfish, more giving, more compassionate as a society . . . perhaps ultimately happier individuals for making a difference in the lives of others as we help each other get through bad times.

An open heart in a sad world is not a bad thing . . . an open heart is one that feels, reacts and makes a difference. In my exploration of peace, love and happiness, compassion for your fellow man is a beautiful part of “peace” . . .

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Tragic society

The news of more and more foreclosures, rising unemployment and general financial disasters has made me wonder when things would start getting really crazy as society becomes so distraught, feeling like they are pushed against the wall with nowhere to go.

It occurred to me tonight that the tragedies have begun and we need to be aware of those close to us . . . you never know what a person or a family is going through.

In recent news I read of a man who froze to death in his home . . . his electricity had been turned off. Didn’t anyone know he was in that situation? An act of kindness as simple as a ride to a local shelter so he could sleep in a warm room and the man would be alive today. It reminded me of a news story I heard a year or two ago where a man was dead in his house for months, maybe even a year . . . and no one knew . . .

Another story hit me as so tragic today . . . a man and his wife both lost their jobs . . . they were found shot to death in their home, along with their children . . . murder/suicide. The story of why was faxed to the local television station before the deaths occurred.

It is tragic desperation . . . I don’t believe in the government bailing out society when money does not grow on trees and “society” is becoming financially devastated and unemployed . . . where does it end? We, as a society, must start helping each other in little ways that will make a difference.

There is always coping with life and a way out of a situation . . . time and faith for starters. Death is not the way, although sometimes I think the ones not having to go through the type of struggles our society is embarking upon are the peaceful souls as we are entering into a time in our world that is a form of hell on earth. We will soon hear these stories with daily frequency and become more desensitized than we already are.

While I can understand the mentality of being distraught, I also know that if we take a moment at a time, think about the situation, reach out to each other, draw closer together . . . there is nothing we can’t do as a society . . . we have no choice but to help each other survive.

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