In These Erratic Times, Keep on Loving

And what is it that stirs your soul in these maddening days?

What melts your heart? What enlivens you? What makes you want to run flat out full speed until out of breath you stop and hold your arms out to the sky?

What motivates you to smile, to laugh out loud, to relish the moment with delight?

What creates deep inside you, feelings of warmth, of affection, of love?

Is it music? Listening to a beautiful song, being moved by the music and the lyrics?

Is it reading a captivating book, following some story whether in a novel or some historical setting, that keeps you turning the page?

Is it a movie, whether sitting in a theater or watching at home on live streaming TV, a movie that holds you in its spell until the credits run at the end?

Is it attending a play, perhaps a musical, like Hamilton, Les Miserables, the Lion King, or some other fantastic performance that soars and enlightens and sends you home emotionally spent, or tingling inside, or singing all the way?

Is it holding a sleeping child and sensing the innocence, the peacefulness of an unspoiled life?

Is it taking some delight you've baked in the kitchen and giving it to a neighbor? Is it sharing a few dollars with a homeless person on the street? Is it volunteering at a women's shelter, or participating in a mentoring program, or reading at story time at your local library?

It is sitting down to a delicious meal with family or friends, sharing laughter and love with one another while enjoying amazing food and tasty drinks?

Is it gardening, putting your hands in the dirt, planting flowers, watching things grow, learning to appreciate nature’s rich resources?

Is it traveling to new places, meeting people different from you, speaking another language, eating different foods, seeing sights you’ve never seen before, taking in the ocean, the mountains, the villages, the deep green valleys, and the small winding roads?

Is it holding a hot cup of coffee in the morning and looking out the window at birds resting on telephone wires dreaming of their flight in the clouds, holding the quiet of the day in your heart?

These are the things that get us through the worst of times. These are the experiences that anchor us in reality. These are the moments to remember when hurts try to crowd them out. These are the times that make us glad we are here.

This is what we do when we reach that point that Whitman described when he wrote, “And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

In the midst of so much confusion today, so much wrangling and division, so much loss of heart and feelings of dismay, there are still joys to be shared. Love has not been defeated in me or in us. What we care most about remains solidly in place.

“Let no one who loves be unhappy,” wrote Shakespeare, “even love unreturned has its rainbows.”

In these erratic times, to keep on loving, whatever that means for you, is the goal.

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The Unclad Soul

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