“Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate.” ~ Marvin Gaye.

Twenty-five years ago, before my father started to show evidence of cognitive decline, one of my nephews got married.  Three generations of the family were represented, and my father, although he no longer officiated at such events, (somewhere there is a joke about how many women he had married in his career as a minister), was invited to participate by delivering the homily.  This, of course, was designed specifically for the bride and groom, but given my father’s love of story-telling, those in the congregation who knew him settled in as he began his message.

It started off predictably, as he drew from one of his favorite (and very familiar) New Testament essays on Love (found in 1^st Corinthians).  But then he decided to educate us on the fact that the Greek language (part of his Bachelor’s degree in Divinity included classes in Greek and Latin) has several different words for love mentioned in the Bible, each describing a different type of love.  There is brotherly love (philia); unconditional love (agape); love between family members (storge); and of course, there is passionate, lustful love (eros).  When my father began to expound upon the topic of eros, his children (now in their thirties and forties) began to rustle a little uncomfortably.  What might he say about a topic which was not usually discussed by our family in an open forum? Especially as he started out talking about how little the topic was talked about when he and my mother got married. There were, he reminded us, no magazines which wrote about sex, no talk-shows with questions from the audience.  No Dr. Ruth! They had to find out on their own, he said, uncertain whether they knew what they were doing!

While his children were squirming on one pew, his grandchildren (most in their teens and early twenties) were elbowing each other and snickering – thinking their Granddad was so cool to be talking about sex! In church! I don’t remember much more of that message, too busy being shocked and embarrassed, not daring to look at my mother’s face.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to think about the topic of love in three very different events.  On Friday night we attended a play written and directed by a local African-American poet and playwright (Darius Daughtry).  His play, apart from being very entertaining, with beautiful music woven through the story-telling (though not a musical as such) was the story of a young man’s search for his purpose in life.  It included difficult topics of abandonment (his father left the family when he was young); the role of grandmothers in the Black family structure; and the challenges of pursuing your dreams in an uncertain field that does not provide job security.  What was beautiful about the event was that although the entire cast and crew were all African-American, and the play drew on cultural themes familiar to any Black family in the US, the audience was diverse, representing the races and ages to be found in South Florida.  And the themes resonated with everyone there, with frequent outbursts of spontaneous applause and laughter.  Unfortunately the play (Seeking) was only on for two nights, but I am sure we will hear more about it.

On Saturday we shared in the sad homegoing service for a young woman who died in childbirth (from a one in 40,000 complication).  Love, and the excerpt from Corinthians was of course included, as this young lady (in obstetrical terms she was actually considered elderly, having her first and much wanted baby at 39) was one who loved with abandon.  She loved her friends (her ‘Circle’ of college friends came up and attested to that); she loved her family (both biological and adopted); and she loved her husband and the baby who survived her.  Although I had not known her, it was one of those funerals that you left feeling as if you did, as the attestations to her life drew a picture of a fun-loving, loyal, life-affirming person, who was not afraid to remind an adult in her life ‘…and you’re a pastor’ after he played a mean trick on her and his daughter. 

On Sunday we attended the Ecumenical service celebrating Jamaica’s Independence (62 years), with all of the extravagant display of Jamaican culture, music, beauty and love of country.  Women and men proudly wore the black, green and gold of the Jamaican flag, and when it came to singing, the entire audience became a choir which filled the huge church with melodic harmony.  The minister in his homily (he was limited, he said, to twenty minutes) also drew on Corinthians to talk about Jamaica’s informal motto,  ‘One Love’.  This of course was immortalized by Bob Marley, and has become a sort of anthem known worldwide, guaranteed to have any audience in the world, standing, rocking and singing the words.

But the pastor challenged us to think more deeply about this concept of ‘one love’.  What does it mean? How is it put into practice?  And should it not mean more than a dance or pride in the success of Jamaican athletes?  Should it not instead be full of compassion, kindness, respect for each other, rejecting all of those things that Paul admonished in his letter?  Love should not be boastful, envious, should not be easily provoked, but should rejoice in the truth.  If Jamaica truly is the ‘One Love’ nation, then there should be more evidence of love’s positive attributes in every day life, in how the wealthy treat the poor, how the educated treat the uneducated, how the leaders lead.  His sermon, though inspirational and motivational, also held an element of admonition. 

Those of us who live in the United States (or who follow what is happening here) have recently witnessed a long-awaited change in public sentiment.  The political race started out as a depressing affair between two aging white men, one of whom seemed to show evidence of cognitive decline (even if sporadic), and the other of whom has long shown evidence of severe narcissism and selfishness.  The lines of division in this country were clear, and one party in particular seemed to be doing as much as possible to capitalize on any bitterness and resentment that still existed, ensuring that ‘others’ should be seen as ‘other’, while apparently there was only one version of a ‘true American’.  All of a sudden the race was upended, and we now have a candidate who is one of the ‘other’ versions of America, and oh boy, the joy! All over the country, disparate groups of people are uniting to show a different possibility, and the energy is building.  There is no doubt that there has been a thirst, a yearning to feel love for our fellow man again, to feel that we have more in common than the superficial differences between us, to remember how it felt to be kind to one another, to show compassion, to care. 

The challenge for all of us is to demonstrate those positive traits to each other even when we disagree.  To be able to listen to each other and try to understand, for we cannot change any minds by being loud or obnoxious.  This Friday morning I can hear my father’s somewhat high (he was a tenor) voice reciting his verses from the King James Version, ending softly ‘…but the greatest of these is Charity.’

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.