An Easy Thing We Can Do For Each Other Right Now
At the play on Saturday evening, the man wearing a guayabera shirt sits in the front row. After the jokes, he laughs the loudest. After the songs, he's the first to cheer. And after the grand finale, he starts the standing O.
The man just turbocharged love to the actors. And what an excellent gift for them to have this big beating heart in the otherwise sedate New England crowd.
When giving mass, a priest friend of mine used to recite a line from Henri-Frédéric Amiel: "Life is short. And we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who make the journey with us. So… be swift to love, and make haste to be kind."
Our man in the theater would’ve made Amiel proud.
The thing about this democracy of ours is that it's both a form of government, but it's also a culture. A culture we're each co-authoring every moment of every day. And I want to live in a culture where we show up for each other like that guy.
I can't be in the front row of every show, so I've opted for a small practice of letting five people know I love them each day.
Sometimes directly: this afternoon, my beloved neighbor told me her cat was winding down his life, and I told her I loved the stuffings outta that four-legged, and her.
Sometimes, less directly: I was grocery shopping the other evening and thought I'd better get a pint of caramel-y gelato for a friend who lives nearby, because what evening isn't improved by a little salty sweet.
Months ago, I sat at the beach with a friend who told me she’d started a little cut flower garden in her yard. She fills up old apple juice jars with hyacinths or daffodils or tulips or alliums, whatever the season provides, and gives them to a friend in a hard moment, someone hosting her for dinner, whomever.
It’s such a loving, lovely idea. So one of my winter projects is to cull the seed catalogs – a favorite January evening pastime – for bright, hearty blooms to fill up the little cut flower garden I'll start at the roadside come spring. Folks walking by can cut all the lilies and zinnias and cosmos their heart desires.
If you’re thinking that we have big, hard problems in our democracy and this lovey-dovey free tulip stuff isn’t going to solve them, I hear that. But I think tough times ask us to think in different ways about how we find our power in them.
Years and years ago, a young girl wrote the President a letter, asking for help to fix her school building that was falling apart at the seams. “We are not quitters,” the fierce little spirit wrote.
Where does that fierceness come from, especially if one’s discouraged, demoralized, despairing?
I can’t say for sure what it was for that little girl, but I’d bet the bank love had something to do with it.
A friend texted me a few kinds words the other day and it was a boost better than morning coffee.
A neighbor walked by me in the garden, said the plants were looking great, and I still beam thinking about it weeks later.
But better than that, these acts made me more loving, more generous, more quick to try and gladden the hearts of others. Love multiples love. Not only that, it can deepen and expand our resolve. “Love is what carries you,” wrote farmer poet Wendell Berry. And who doesn’t need to be carried these tender days?
So if you find yourself wondering what actions make a difference right now, love will always be a worthwhile use of our time.