03 Sep A Parents’ Love
Love Lived: an invitation to us all! The Airport Encounter.
There I was standing erect at a “standing up” table in the middle of the continuity of people traffic in the middle of a busy airport. It was a moment. It was an invitation. It was obvious and hidden all at once.
Just in front of me on a bench, seated below me, was a family – a Mom, a Dad, and two young children.
They were laughing and gently tending to one another. Their laughter felt to me like a song being sung beneath the noisy buzzing of all the travelers hurrying around me.
Their presence was like a harmonic melody, quietly playing beneath the travel-chaos, for those able to tune into that channel.
Despite the hassle and bustle of a major airport, it was as if their loving kindness to one another was contained inside a bubble of light. It was clear that both the parents were a bit tired, while simultaneously tending to both children with a patient lightness. They all frequently burst into giggles and laughter quite naturally with one another. Hugs exchanged and looks filled with loving attention were often shared between all. The environment did not leave any contamination in their relational spaces.
The pressures to give over to the push and pull around them were just breezes blowing past them.
I lifted my head and looked around. There were so many folks staring at their “screens”, oblivious to this precious teaching right in our midst. Most were oblivious to one another as well as to the irony that they were traveling via “screen” and plane.
And what was this precious mystery being revealed before me?
What was it about these 4 that pulled on my awareness?
In simple words: It is LOVE being LIVED.
Love is easily spoken of as a concept or ideal.
What was rare was the realness of lived Love.
Whether it is as parents, or friends or partners or countries … “Lived Love in Real time”… is a powerful potent invitation to any who may be open enough to witness its presence.
There, right in the middle of a place and space where we often see parenting in one of the most challenging conditions, was a team demonstrating that loving kindness between parents and between parent and child All were responding.
Then off to the side was a couple engaged in a common everyday occurrence: a tiny tug of war.
One arguing for one thing while the other resisted.
On the other side of the area were two older folks looking at each other in silent irritation with a frustration atmosphere conveying the mutual blaming occurring.
Isn’t this the way of countries, of political parties, of partners and even into all members of a family?
We all get to choose.
However, in this precious moment, I was witness to our alternative choice! To Live Love.
What does that actually mean? Love, I mean. What is love?
I would suggest that love in action is the choice to accept, even without full understanding, the choices of another. Acceptance is not condoning… it is allowing the space for the other to be as they choose.
AND in the case of LOVE, it is to hold their other’s heart as holding fine crystal.
The spaces between us are fragile and if “dropped’ or “ignored” or “stomped on” break in a zillion pieces. These pieces are very difficult to gather up into a (W)holeness after the shattering.
This family, I was given a chance to witness, was LIVING LOVE, while the parents maintained a steady containment around both children. There was a lightness about all interactions even when it was a behavioral correction.
What do you choose in your moments?
How do you choose to hold the precious crystal of all the relationship around you?
May I suggest: Do it with intent, purpose and awareness of the essential choice:
FEAR or LOVE it’s your choice.
Alaya
September 2019