We protest because we love

 

Review your sheet with “Faith” at the top, and re-read what you’ve written on the sheet with “Hope” on top.  Now, I want you to list the names of everyone who embodied and expressed love to you in your life on the sheet with “Love”.  Family, friends, a random stranger this week whose name you don’t know, but paid for your hot chocolate during these chilly days.  We are overwhelmed with the Hallmark-zation of “love” in these days.  Too many stories show love as being fluffy and fuzzy.  But ponder these insights: the great Howard Thurman once said, “The formula is very neat: love begets love, hate begets hate, indifference begets indifference. Often this is true. Again and again, we try to dispense to others what we experience at their hands. There is much to be said for the contagion of attitudes.”

 

Or take Maya Angelou who wrote: “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, and penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”  (Tie this back to the story of Phontine and Jesus on Sunday in your heart.)

 

Toni Morrison said, “Love is or it ain’t.  Thin love ain’t love at all.” 

 

Or what about, “We do not protest because we hate, we protest because we love.  We protest for the beautiful future we know is possible.  We do so with joy, because the music of community plays in our hearts and we cannot help but sing.”  Now it is your turn, what questions stir and swirl in your heart when it comes to the word “Love” right now?  What comes up when you Google “Love”?   How does love play with faith and hope?  I recently heard that annoyance is the price we pay for community, connection, and love!  Let’s keep playing and praying and vulnerably living the word love in these February days.  Amen.