Love is the Answer

When All Around You is Dark, Choose the Light

It seems like everywhere you look lately, the world is full of suffering.  Hurricane Helene wrought untold destruction in the Southeastern United States.  California and the Pacific Northwest are simultaneously on fire and flooding.  Wars are raging in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Sudan, and many other countries.  The greatest tragedy of all is humans turning against one another instead of coming together.  Love and patience are natural resources that seem to be in short supply.

My body is at war with me.  Today is another day in which my joints don’t want to bend, my fingers swollen like sausages, impeding my will to type these words.  When I walk, my legs feel weirdly stiff and tight, like I’m wearing a pair of jeans two sizes too small.

When my body feels this way, I lean into softness.  Instead of jeans, I wear fleece leggings.  A long-sleeved T-shirt of brushed cotton glides over my upper body, while a chenille cardigan wraps me in a cloud-like hug.  Throw that bra right out the window.  Ditto with the shoes.  None of that junk will squeeze my body into socially appropriate shapes today.  I’m allowing it to ooze into its own form, an amoeba of comfort.

The whole “clean eating” regimen follows suit.  I choked down a smoothie this morning, but that’s likely to be my only effort at a healthy diet today.  I nibbled a couple graham crackers to help line my stomach before I loaded up on Tylenol.  Lunch will probably be a can of soup instead of something containing an abundance of vegetables selected for their antioxidants.  I predict ginger chews in my future.

My aging dog, Gidget, is fifteen years old, and she requires a great deal of TLC.  I lift her up onto the couch with “uppy puppy” uttered cheerfully with each boost.  She gets wrapped in a blanket and fluffed into comfort, then I gently plant a kiss on her tiny head.  On days like today, I treat myself like a little old dog who needs a little extra care.  But I promise to keep my tongue fully inside my mouth while I nap. 

Gidget McFidget and her pokey tongue.

Perhaps that mindset of added softness holds the key to solving the problem of interpersonal strife.  In a world where it feels like everyone you meet is bristling with razor blades, reply with cotton candy.  Let your words be sweet and soft.  Let your smile be genuine.  I’m not recommending you offer your throat to their blade but try to disarm them with kindness. 

We are not the enemy of each other. 

Every single human being you meet is exactly the same as you.

We all turn away from pain and toward joy.  We all want to be loved.  Not a single person you meet wants to suffer or go hungry.  If you are reading this somewhere that is free of war, free of natural disaster.  If you have a warm bed, a hot meal, and someone who loves you, you are better off than most, but that does not make you better than them.  It only makes you more fortunate.

Today, I urge you to try an experiment in kindness.  Smile at a stranger.  Buy a coffee for the person in line behind you at the drive thru.  Hold a door open for someone.  Give someone a genuine compliment. Donate to or volunteer at a charity of your choice. Encourage others to join forces in the gentle battle to stamp out interpersonal, and impersonal, cruelty. Together, we can create an army of love.

Lift someone up because tearing another person down does not make you stand taller.  Say the kind words to yourself like you would to a little old dog or a small child.  Then say those kind words to others.  Love is a natural resource that grows more abundant the more we use it. Cruelty can only destroy while love naturally creates.

With less than two weeks left until America makes a decision, let kindness guide your choices.  Choose love, not hate.  There is not a single problem in the history of the world that has been solved by hate.