The Greatest of all these is Love

I think that most people will agree that the greatest human virtue is the ability to love. But really what is love broken down to its purest part? It is empathy or compassion. It is the ability to be with someone in joy or in pain. The ability to sit with them in hell or soar with them to the heavens.

One would think that the joy is easy, but not always. If I don't know joy within myself, I can't share it with someone else. So my self-love and the enjoyment I take from my life is actually beneficial to all those I touch. Because joy is infectious.

Pain is sometimes more difficult to embrace. My own pain sits somewhere at the back of my mind, I love to ignore it. Then I meet someone who is suffering so I just want to ignore her. I am too busy pursuing my own happiness. But if I stop and hold her for a while, I take the opportunity to develop love in myself. All emotional pain is a gift, an occasion when I can decide to open my heart and mind more or close it up.

How can I understand the suffering of another if I have never suffered? Holding another through their healing gives me the opportunity to heal myself, to cultivate love. So that then I can soar so much higher.

Where happiness hides

What are we all trying to do anyway? Where are we all going? What are we running after?

Well-being? Love? Happiness?

What if we just stopped for a while and found well-being, love and happiness inside. Or in contemplation of a body of water, a tree swaying in the wind, the eyes of our beloved? The source of all lasting happiness is hidden in these types of experiences. This is my daily bread. This is the nourishment of my soul. This is my prayer, my meditation. This is how I give glory to all that is. This is my religion.

I remember being very sad when my son was just a few months old. The words of a friend came to mind. "When you are experiencing a painful emotion focus on something uplifting for twenty one seconds. This exercise will raise you up."

So I did it. I looked at my baby boy who instantly smiled at me. The more I looked at him, the more he smiled and giggled. I ended up being infected by his joy. It didn't completely erase the pain but it came pretty close.

I find myself by a lake on a mild day, with nothing to do but enjoy the sensations of summer, observing the patterns in the water, allowing myself to be hypnotized by them. These are the patterns of life, they are the music that is written in my soul. They take me back to who I am, and I become drunk on the sensations of the moment.

Without the sustenance of these eternal moments I am only a part of what I can be. With them I am more relaxed, more patient, more focused, more loving. Isn't that what religion is all about, making us better, more whole?

Reach out confidently

I was a single parent of two children for three years, living in Versailles, far from my family and all I grew up with. I worked full time, had my kids in two activities each and took drama classes myself. I had so many friends that I was sometimes worn out. We had great parties, with an abundance of good food, good wine and the best champagne in the world, music and dancing. My closest friends would never do anything without including my children and me -excursions to the theatre, movies, swimming pool, or a game of dodgeball in the park.

Was I lonely? Sometimes.

I was lonely when I had problems I couldn't share with them, like money problems. Money was a bit of a taboo and still is to a certain extent. Self esteem is wrapped up in money or spending power. So there were only about two people I would ask for help with money and it always took a great effort from me to do this.

There was another occasion when I felt lonely. On days like Mother's day or Easter Sunday or Christmas day or even most Sundays at lunchtime. People would typically arrive by car to the building where we lived. They would ascend the stairs to the different residences, laden down with flowers, desert or other packages. They were visiting their parents or aunts or cousins. This sight tugged at my heart, my family being in Canada.

But the worst isolation was to feel alone with my children, with their pain, with their rage, with what I perceived to be the injustice that was done to them. I was twenty eight years old when my single parenthood status began. That was very young to deal with an abusive unfaithful husband, a divorce, and two small children in the mix, not to mention finances.

I know it's not the worst thing that can happen but it was hard to carry all that alone, or what felt like alone.

There is no absolute cure for loneliness because it is most often in our own minds that we are alone. My mother used to say "a problem shared is a problem halved". So, that's my cure!

Rise the Knowledge

Life can be harsh and cruel and a lot of it is actually legal and socially acceptable, like verbal abuse, isolation and greed. Some is illegal, yet the perpetrators are not brought to justice because of connections they have or power they hold.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are taken care of to the point that their power is taken away. They are prisoners in a gilded cage.

Most of us in the developed world, fall somewhere in the middle. And this is a healthy place to be but we all dream of riches, being pampered, having all the material things we desire. We are distracted, seduced by the dream that we can have it all, while our fellow humans are maintained in the bondage of poverty, injustice and ignorance.

We, in the middle, are perhaps as free as a human can be at this point in time.

We are free to marry whom we choose. We can keep our children with us and raise them as we wish. We have the right to food, education, medicare, religious practice. We have access to employment in whatever field we choose. We have access to technology. We can vote. We have freedom of speech. We are relatively safe. War is a distant thing. Most humans in the world are not so fortunate.

And what are we doing with our freedom? What can we do with our freedom?

Firstly we can decide who we choose to be. Am I someone who takes responsibility only for myself? Or am I someone who considers the bigger picture? When, I look back, do I see destruction or do I see improvement?

Do I vote to have more money in my pocket? Or do I vote to improve the environment or to empower others?

Are my children going to be happier with a bigger inheritance or a better planet?

There is no political party that represents me. I believe in people. I believe that people are leading themselves off track by forgetting what's important at the moment.

We may be deceived now, we may suffer injustice, but it will not last.

"Tiocfaidh ar la"

"Our day will come"

A Red Headed Brother

When I lived in Paris, I encountered young people who did some time for drugs or petty crimes and when they were released, had no one to help them out. So they lived on the streets, and begged outside my local supermarket.

One such person was a red headed twenty year old with a baby face. He reminded me of my brother who was living an ocean away. So naturally, I wanted to help him. This usually took the form of a sandwich, a drink or, at easter, some chocolates.

The group of three or four buddies greeted me by name and a hug every time we met. They were warm but respectful. They didn't even ask for anything. They accepted what I offered. Occasionally, I gave them a coin if I was short on time. If I had time, I would chat with them and ask them questions about their past, their families, their plans. They still had hopes and dreams even though they were at such a low.

Several months had passed without a chance encounter. Then, one day, around Christmas time, I came upon my friendly red head. When I approached him, and was at about two feet from his face, I noticed that his dilated eyes were distant. He looked right through me. There was no light, no smile, no recognition in him. He asked me for spare change as he stumbled over his own feet. It saddened me.

The next time I met him, he was sober. I told him I had seen him and that he hadn't recognized me, and asked him, "Why do you drink?

His reply stayed with me because I could think of no argument to counter it. "I drink because it's cold living on the street."

Something told me that the cold he was referring to, was not just the temperature.

Do what you love

Imagine we could really influence the reality of our bodies, our lives, our planet and all we have to do is exactly what we all want to do, with all our being, all the time - love!

Everyday Buddhist practitioners cultivate compassion in meditation. They send love into the furthest reaches of the universe, starting with their own bodies. Recently, scientists are coming close to proving that this practice actually has an influence on physical reality.

Nowadays, the belief that we can have an effect on our bodies with positive thoughts is widely accepted as true. So, to take that belief to the next level wouldn’t be a big stretch.

My question is what are we waiting for to put it into practice?

And, what have we got to lose?

For sure, there are the survival duties to perform, or the responsibilities to our loved ones. But as Kahlil Gibran says, “If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.”

Often families are not what we expect and we are not carved out of a model of the perfection ourselves. So we may not live up to each other’s ideas and so we shouldn’t. Sometimes, help, hospitality and affection comes from friends or even strangers when we need it.

It would be better for me to leave the care of a relative to a neighbour, who would be delighted to be of service, rather than do it with a reluctant heart.

We need to exercise more caution with the words “should” and “have to”. When we use these words, often we are giving away our power.

Everything we do is a choice. There are some choices that have become so ingrained in us that we don’t see them as choices anymore. But they are, and the great thing about choices is that we can change them.

Sometimes these words are used as excuses that maintain us at an acceptable level of self pity. “I have to do this job even though I hate it, because I have to pay the bills.” How about choosing to do this job because I choose to pay my bills? Or, choosing to spend my lunch break looking for another job. Or, taking on a room mate so they can share the bills. Or, doing what I love whatever the cost?

“If we are not here to do, what you and I want to do, and go forever crazy with it, why the hell we are even here?” (Gogol Bordello)

So, what do you choose to do or not do?

Who do you love?

The family I grew up with for the most part are "normal" in their attitudes towards sexual orientation. There is little or no homophobia in us. But it is not true for everyone. Now because we have so many in our family it is statistically impossible that there are no homosexuals in our midst. Yet to date no one has come out. Normally I would say that it's none of our business. But today after hearing the news of so many teens who are killing themselves because of bullying or intolerance, I believe it is everyone's business.

It is everyone's business to check the negative programming in themselves that it's okay to joke about being gay. It's everyone's business to speak up if someone is making a homophobic remark or slur. It is everyone's business to make sure that children are comfortable with talking about and exploring their sexual orientation.

We need to ask the question. Do I love my children or family members unconditionally or only if they are heterosexual?

Each person has to do their own work on themselves to undo the prejudice, the judgements, the discomfort. Imagine you're the one who's different from the norm. If you're heterosexual, imagine being gay is the norm. How would you feel if you were threatened, ridiculed, and even beaten because of something you can do nothing about.

Can you control who you love? Who you fall in love with? I can't and I'm not sure I'd want to. My heart opens up and teaches me so much when I fall in love. The world becomes altered in my perception. Even if my heart ends up in shatters, I learn, I grow, I experience, I live.

How can I say it's different for a woman who loves another woman or a man who loves another man?

In a way, I would like to be gay so that I could say to my nieces, my nephews and my family, "Look, I'm gay. I'm fine. I'm happy." But I can't because the truth is, that as beautiful and wonderful women are, I am attracted to men. There's nothing I can do about it. Sometimes I wish there was!