Love is Love

My mother’s mantra has always been “live and let live”. I love the implicit acceptance in that simple credo. It is void of judgment and prejudice.  You live your life and I’ll live mine. Presumably in peace. If only reality were that simple. If only more people believed as my mother believes.

After all, who are any of us to judge? So what if I’m Christian and you’re Muslim? Who cares if I’m white and you’re black? What difference does it make if I’m heterosexual and you’re homosexual? Love is love. You love your God as I love my God. You love your heritage as I love my heritage. You love your significant other as I love my significant other. We all have hearts that beat and hope and fear. We all have rights that should be equal and free. We are all born, live and die. And we all love.

My experience has been that the more accepting I am and the wider I open my heart, the more absolute joy and peace and hope I encounter. I strive to live and let live. To accept. To embrace. To leave judgment to God. To celebrate love and appreciate it however it is manifested.

Thank you for setting such an amazing example, Mom. xo

For Everything There is a Season

As a species we are blessed and cursed with the intellectual capacity to experience a wide range of emotions. We rejoice in the wondrous feelings inspired by love, hope and joy and we endure the anguish wrought in the face of loss, fear, and despair. We are blessed to feel all of these emotions:  to feel loss means that we have been fortunate enough to have loved and to have been loved;  we experience fear when we have been brave enough to hope, to dream, to try; and, we know despair only because we have first known joy and happiness to some degree. Each paradoxical emotion sharpens the other and makes us appreciate the good stuff and helps us to endure the bad stuff.

A week ago today we said goodbye to a much loved and cherished member of our family. My husband’s aunt passed away after a third battle with cancer, one she chose to face on her own terms; she was truly brave. She had a light about her that embraced you even before she pulled you close for a hug; she was truly beautiful. She cared deeply about others and even from her deathbed her concern was for those who visited, not for herself; she was truly kind and gracious. At the funeral, one of her brothers paid tribute to her and his eloquent words have haunted me since. He started by saying, “she was beauty” and that so succinctly, so sweetly captured her essence. He said that she once told him not to wish for happiness but to wish for peace, her reasoning being if you have peace then happiness will follow; she was truly wise.

There is nothing quite like death to make you fully appreciate the fragility and immeasurable value of life. I am counting my blessings today, as I do every day. I am offering thanks and gratitude for my loved ones and their good health and happiness. For my friends, near and far, old and new. For my own good health, and capacity for love and joy and faith and growth.

So my wish for the universe is this: whomever may read this post, love someone a little deeper today, hug a little longer, extend an extra kindness to someone in your world, known or stranger; find some way to leave your imprint of goodness on this world.

Choose how you wish to be remembered.

Small Town, Big Heart

Small town living has countless pros and cons. One of the pluses is definitely how the residents rally when one of their own is in need. We saw an amazing example of that in my town this past weekend.

From Saturday afternoon until well into the wee hours of Sunday morning, a group of local musical talent came together to participate in a benefit concert. The concert was in aid of a terminally ill resident who travelled to Europe for treatment options not currently available in Canada. Needless to say this travel was at an exorbitant cost to the family. In their shoes, any of us would do the same - in a heartbeat. Friends of the family suggested a benefit concert to raise funds, hoping that even a few hundred dollars would be a help to offset some of the expenses.

Our small town of only 1,500 residents raised nearly $15,000 at this benefit!! And I have a feeling that amount will grow over the days and weeks ahead. I hope the money is a help to the family and I especially hope the love and support demonstrated by the town is uplifting and comforting to them at this stressful and difficult time.

Last Words

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world."  

-- Jack Layton (1950-2011)

I hope the ripple of these beautiful words encompass the nation, the continent, the world. 


Rest in peace, Jack Layton. 

Returns

A quick update on the repayment status of my first Kiva loan; to date I have received one payment (representing 12% payback of total loan amount) and it was 3 weeks early! I was so encouraged by this that I went ahead with a second loan. As the monies are repaid, my plan is to keep re-lending the funds to other Kiva borrowers. It feels good!!! 

No Place to Call Home

I had an interesting conversation with my 15 year old son over lunch yesterday. He was telling me about the movie “8 Mile”, a semi-autobiopic movie about rapper Eminem. An aside before proceeding -- my son has rather eclectic tastes in music -- his iPod contains everything from Brad Paisley to ZZ Top to Black Sabbath to Eminem. The kid appreciates music in all its forms, including rap. While I don’t share that particular appreciation I do respect the fact that he does.

Anyway, we were discussing how many rap artists emerged from lives of extreme disadvantage, poverty, violence and so forth. He made the observation that so often our attention is directed to developing nations in need of help but what about the poverty-stricken, hungry and homeless right in our own country. It was a very good point.

Back in April, we walked through Union Station in downtown Toronto late at night following a concert at the ACC. I was shocked and completely overwhelmed by the number of homeless people in the station with outreached hands and containers. Despite a national welfare system, too many people fall through the cracks. In Canada there are between 150,000 to 300,000 homeless people (the numbers vary by source). Misconceptions run rampant on who these homeless people are: drug addicts, mentally ill individuals, lazy people who choose not to work. Perhaps in some cases, but they are also the working poor who cannot find affordable housing. They are those individuals down on their luck, unable to find or maintain employment. They are you and me without our good fortune.

There are so many people out there without the benefit of a supportive family or network of friends when life takes a downturn; when they find themselves without a steady job (or an adequately paying job) or a sturdy roof over their heads. Lack of affordable housing, even in small rural towns exacerbates the problem. Bad luck can befall any of us. Life circumstances can change in the blink of an eye. Canada is the only G-8 nation not to have a national housing strategy. Even low income housing is market driven which means rents are often too high for low income individuals and families to afford.

The proverbial question is of course what can we do to make a difference? We can lobby our government for a comprehensive national housing policy to ensure housing is provided on a social driven basis, not market driven, which in turn would assure every Canadian the right to a home. We can donate gently used clothing and household items to organizations such as The Gathering Place (St. John’s) or Salvation Army. We can donate our recyclables to organizations or individuals in need in our communities. We can support our local food banks with regular donations of non-perishable goods or cash gifts. We can become more aware of this growing problem and spread awareness to others. And if we find ourselves at the giving end of an outreached hand, we can smile in kindness and we can give. 

Kind Words

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless."

-Mother Teresa (1910-1997)