Where is the Love?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

The one true and lasting gift that the hippies tried to give the world is precisely that which has been offered by every wise or holy man or woman to ever walk the earth – the gift of love.  Love as a conscious choice, love as an ethic, love as a way of life, love as the antidote to fear, hatred and violence – love as a way to walk lightly on the earth.

We have been offered this gift over and over again and have yet to accept it (at the societal level anyway).  While individuals may live lives that are guided, motivated and made full by love, the larger society rejects it in its short-sighted obsession with getting and spending…as do governments as a general rule.  It gets in the way of their business.  It clashes with the fear and loathing.  One cannot afford to love those upon whom one would prey, and predatory government is apparently the natural order of things.  

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.

from William Wordsworth’s The World Is Too Much with Us

The U.S. government is in fact actively opposed to love.  The FBI has for decades spied on Quakers, hippies, student organizers, civil rights activists, peaceniks and other such ‘dangerous radicals’.  Apparently they feel threatened by anyone who opposes hatred, bigotry, violence and war.  Witness their campaign against the man who wrote All You Need Is Love.

The trailer for The U.S. Vs. John Lennon:

The concept of love has been mocked and ridiculed for so long by those who lack it that it is hard for us to even discuss love openly – at least not as a serious social issue or national policy (God forbid).  Look at how they mocked Kucinich for daring to suggest a Department of Peace.  We are besotted with militarism in this country, which is based on fear and hatred and fueled by the black-hearted greed of war profiteers.  There is something false, shameful or naïve about love (or peace) they would have you believe, purely the stuff of fairytales and romance novels…when just the opposite is true.  

“Love is the most powerful and still most unknown energy in the world.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

And that is why they fear it so.

Love is a profoundly powerful form of energy that we can each generate within our own hearts.  It is a choice.  It is a way of facing the world.  It springs (I believe) from the most basic appreciation of life and existence.  I think it can also be argued that nothing good ever occurs without it.  In a world such as this, someone has to care enough to make good things happen…and such caring comes only from love.  

I have long admired the Berrigan Brothers.  At the March 19 demonstrations in DC, I met Phillip’s widow, Liz.  I hugged her and told her how much I had always loved and admired her husband.  She thanked me and shared that Daniel is very frail.  So sad that these brave warriors for peace should die without seeing peace come to us all.  They sacrificed all their lives to make it happen.  Shame on the rest of us for not helping enough.  

Love is what made their sacrifices possible.

If you are awed by your own existence, if this universe fills you with wonder, if you feel reverence for life, if your heart feels compassion for the suffering millions, the profoundest response to our existence that any of us are capable of is love, sweet love.

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.

It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

I Corinthians 13:4-8

Love never fails – but it is not easy.

Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being “drawn toward.” Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one’s friends and enemies.

Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggle, resistance, risk. People working today on behalf of women, blacks, lesbians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this country and elsewhere know that making justice is not a warm, fuzzy experience. I think also that sexual lovers and good friends know that the most compelling relationships demand hard work, patience, and a willingness to endure tensions and anxiety in creating mutually empowering bonds.

For this reason loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called “love.” Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity — a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh.

Carter Heyward, Passion for Justice

Love is a conversion to humanity – and as an added bonus, love is free.

There was a deep connection between the hippies and the Beatles, and their message was all about love.  They were sort of spiritual gurus to my generation.  We were buffeted by the same winds.  We all went through the same changes and their music formed the soundtrack of our lives while their ethos illuminated our paths.  Their awakening was our awakening…and vice versa.  They were, perhaps more than anything else, prophets of love. I consider All You Need is Love to be John’s greatest song, and as George lay dying, his last three words on this earth echoed the oldest message there is, and one we still need to hear…”Love one another.”

All you need is love

All you need is love

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need