Obsessing about Love

Last week, our kids transformed the kitchen into a Valentine factory. Glitter covered our table, counters, chairs and most of our dogs too. Piles of papers baring heart-shaped wounds littered the floor.

They produced 50-some creations that only a mother can recognize as hearts, and taped a piece of leftover Halloween candy on each one for good measure. (At last -- that stash is gone.)

Valentine’s Day aside, love has been on my mind a lot this past year. Not heart pounding, stomach dropping romantic love, but love as in “love your neighbor” or “love your enemy.”

Love like:
• The Trinity Lutheran Church lady who volunteers 50 hours each week to coordinate The Banquet meals for needy people in our community.
• The young women who help developmentally disabled adults swim at our local pools.
• The people who run the Children’s Advocacy Center, Abused Adult Resource Center, Teen Challenge, Charles Hall, Ruth Meier’s, and all the churches that serve the poor and less fortunate.

These people live love as a calling.

Recently, a young priest at my church told our congregation that he hoped we could feel his love for us “overflowing” from him. He choked up a bit as he spoke and his words struck me, not because they were terribly profound but because they were so sincere.

Here was a young man who has devoted his life to loving and caring for others and you can, most certainly, feel the love flowing from him. What a gift to us – immeasurable really, in terms of the impact on people around him.

Helen Keller said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”

We hear this and nod because we know it’s true. Yet we are so easily, almost obsessively distracted from this lesson. We pack our days trying to see and accomplish and accumulate things to touch, and in the process lose sight of our most important calling to love.

In the rush of a day, it’s easy to bypass simple, loving gestures like sitting down with my five-year-old to talk about his school papers, having a complete conversation with my husband, or calling a lonely friend.

Mattie Stepanek, a young poet who died at age 13 from a severe form of muscular dystrophy, became famous for his touching “Heartsongs” poems. I’m not a big reader of poetry, but this little boy’s plain words are inspiring.

In a poem titled, “Believing in the Journey” he wrote, “Everyday, everyone in the world should do at least one nice thing for others. Doing so can help each person believe in himself or herself more fully and give confidence that may inspire each person to do more new and good things.”

It’s simple and idealistic. But it works. Kindness and love are contagious, not just on Valentine’s Day but everyday. May you be inspired to do more new and good things, even small and insignificant, so your love overflows for everyone to feel.