The news these past several days has been utterly shattering. A mass shooting at Brown University and the devastation of fatalities, a horrific massacre half the world away in Australia sending shockwaves around the globe as the monster of antisemitism rears its ugly head and roars, American soldiers and an interpreter killed in an ambush in Syria, and the heartbreaking and tragic murders of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, followed by the shockingly corrosive and completely disgraceful response from the president. How easy it is to succumb to hopelessness and despair. How deeply we might feel the darkness closing in.
There are no magic words for such times. We all know that. The world has always been a mixed bag of devastation and hope, wonder and terror. That’s just the truth. Yet, in the middle of it all, we still have each other, and for me that is what makes all the difference.
Y’all. There is so much love in the world. It’s easy enough to forget, because more often than not, love is quiet in its approach. It doesn’t show up with fanfare, trumpets blaring. Instead, it slides up alongside us to offer an arm to lean on, or appears with a tire pump and patch kit, then disappears again. Sometimes, it pads across the floor to lay a furry head in our lap, patient in waiting out our keening grief. Sometimes, as a maelstrom of fear swirls around us, peace works its way into our troubled hearts through love dispatched on the wings of prayer.
I firmly believe love is the durable, sturdy framework that holds up the whole enterprise. And in the end, it’s all we really have. But I promise you, it is enough. It has to be.
And so, remembering that a single lit candle can be seen from nearly two miles way, I choose to look for where there is light. I’m continuing to seek those small, tender moments that offer me a dose of hope, an encouraging message I might pass along, a spirit-bolstering vitamin for the soul.
Here is one such moment from several weeks ago. I offer it to you in the hope it helps.
First of all, for context, I love dogs so much, you cannot imagine. The little yippy, needle-teethed ones, the big, slobbery runny-eyed ones, the ones that look like they’ve been put together using spare parts, the elegant ones archly aware of their breeding, the stolidly beautiful mutts who don’t give a fig about anybody’s lineage, the old ones with really terrible breath. All of them.
Personally, I’m partial to Boxers. They are home to me, because I grew up with them, and so because I know how they are wired and how to train them, they became my preferred brand of dog as an adult, too.
But I’m an equal opportunity nut over any dog that I don’t think will take a bite out of me. I’ll ask you first, but given the slightest encouragement, I’ll drop to my knees and love up your dog right there on the hiking trail until you have to look away in pained embarrassment.
It’s frequently said, “We don’t deserve dogs.” But I think we do. Because of the love thing.
Anyway, here’s a moment I very nearly missed, because I forgot to not be in a hurry.
I was driving down King Street, and traffic was moving slowly, creeping along so that I had to temper my impatience by indulging in people-watching, a habit as a writer that I boldly confess to. I watched backpack-laden college students tacking back and forth along the wide sidewalk, saw a beetle-browed professor in a tweed jacket who was carrying the proverbial leather satchel. There were shoppers toting bulging bags and a cop moseying along, scanning the street from behind reflector shades. I stared at their comings and goings while tapping on my steering wheel with one finger, feeling the urgency of wherever I had to be next, which to be honest I’ve now completely forgotten.
What I do recall is this. Amid the back and forth of people, as if she was a small stone in a rushing stream, stood a very young woman, head bent, peering straight down at the sidewalk. She was slight, elfin with wavy brown hair and wore a light jacket, and it looked like she held something in her hands. How odd, I thought, what is she doing? And then as I rolled past her I saw it. The scruffy little terrier sitting primly at her feet, gazing up at her in smitten adoration as she took its picture with her cell phone, again and again. And the pert attention of the creature’s small frame, the careful way he held his wee head so still for her, and the angle of her body, focused on that sweet doggo as if there was nothing else of importance on the whole planet, something about the whole tableau just about did me in.
Then traffic suddenly thinned out and I was past them. At the next stoplight I dried my eyes and gave thanks for the thing I’d almost missed. I stored the memory away, to draw out later and feast on when feeling low, when I’m in danger of forgetting that love is in the world, and that it goes by many names and sometimes no name, but we know it when we see it, when we feel it, when it lands on us like a wispy feather or like a steel girder, reminding us it’s here to stay, and that no matter how grim things seem, how dangerous and unknowable the world may feel of late, love is not going anywhere.
Except wider and deeper. Always and forever that. Wider and deeper.
Love is not going anywhere. Yes.
Beautiful reminder to keep our eyes and ears open for it. Love this 🩷