It's just like the Arc. Instead of animals to save, its our deepest loved ones and friends. Instead of rising waters, it is the long darkness of what lies ahead, the vast stretches of the here and now and the hereafter. It is when we reach out for human touch and can't quite make it. It is when we miss someone and just want to bring them near. It is when we have the teddy bear in the back seat....the one we always hug when we are lonely....when we may wish it could be someone, but that someone is just not anymore in the back seat with us....
Living in this 21st Century, we must deal with the constant factor of what is politically correct. Instead of hugging, we must shake hands. Instead of hugging deeply and kissing, we peck each other's cheek, or maybe we bow.
Electronic love takes its place. We spend one to three hours each day touching each other's heart and soul by sharing ourselves by email or visually by email and video. It can be real. So real. Almost like actual, but still just electronic. We virtually open our hearts to someone who knows us...virtual sharing....it is as real as life....we see the heart and even the face electronically...and our own heart may skip a beat....is it all electronic? Is it all just temporary? What is the chance we may accidentally stumble upon true love? Electronically. It is real.
So it is quite simple. We need to share our love and it is always there...a constant. Our fast and tech- enabled life makes for new channels, and maybe multiplies our media for stating our love. But we can and always need to reach out and touch. We bring many into our heart...we bring a few into our soul, and some just come roaring into our lives and are front and center without any invitation...it blows us away...it stays. We try to forget. We try to view it as dispensable, part of doing business. But it is not. It is bigger than life.
Each of us has this all happen. We live, we love, then we die.
But our loving spirit wants to sail on...and on....
And each of us has the choice. I believe we can create in our mind and heart and soul a circle in which we put the deepest ones we love, maybe many. These may be actual loves we share and experience, and they may be loves we lost or never can find again. Yet, we can bring them home within our circle of love by our choice. It has always felt like we are assembling these dearly beloved for a cruise on a ship to a beautiful place. Heaven on earth. In our arms, in our hearts, in our minds. We take these loves on into the distant future. When we feel most alone...when the walls cannot talk back...when we reach for human touch....our fingers reach, but cannot find.....we must not give up. We cannot give up. We allow our heart to join the Ship of Friends. Then, we are welcomed....the weight is lifted, and we are at home.....
For many it may be a lost parent. A father or a mother, not here anymore. Yet, we can bring them to our senses, we can hear their voice. If it is our mother, we can almost hear her very first words to us when she held us the first time...in the first minute of our life. If our father, we can see his face right there, and hear his gentle voice. We reach out with our hands...we try to hug them, we can almost bring them to our touch....we reach so very hard....so hard....and we seek their soul. Then, we find it....it hears us and our cry. Our souls do touch. We bring them with us every moment we reach for them.
It is intimacy we reach for. This reach for human touch in the 21st Century is so hard. Our hearts and souls scream out for this human contact we call love. And, there is something which is true love. It may not be by choice....but its force we feel all through our life. When we have it in our arms, we are at one with another and ourself....when we do not, we feel alone and empty. We are not meant to be alone in life, either young or old. We know this...
That is our Ship of Friends. And each of has one, and each of us has the choice to declare this. I believe it helps us to love more and deeper. And, in the end, what is there more important than our love. It is the ultimate gift to us, when it comes, and it is the ultimate gift we give.
Noah gathered the animals to save them for all time from the rising waters. We live our lives in love, gathering those others for our own longer voyage into the future. We are not alone...
We declare ourselves with the ones we love....we will not be alone....
The declaration of dependence frees our soul to love and to give life to others. Declare at least, if only to yourself....there is such a thing as true love....it is worth everything to find....and to give.
