Living Outside the Box!

Approximately two years after I was born, in June of 1967, the Beatles released their famous song, "All You Need is Love".  This was the context; racial tensions were super heating in the United State and the Vietnam War was  creating a quagmire with fading hopes for  a peaceful resolution.  A nasty tussle over oil and land engulfed Africa's most strategically important and populous county, Nigeria on the West coast  of Africa in the Biafrian war in which millions lost their lives and Israel launched the 6 day War under threat from its neighbors.   Against this backdrop, the message of the song seemed incongruous and naive.  Was all we really needed love?

In these early years of my childhood, I was too young to understand what was going on.  By 1970, the war in Nigeria had ended, and left millions starving.  My mother had started working for the Sudan Interior Mission and became involved with a relief operation to take food, and clothing to war ravaged area in Eastern Nigeria.  I remember staying with family friends while my Mom would fly on missions to drop off these clothes and food supplies. 

I had little awareness of how dangerous and heroic my Mother's efforts were.  As we grew older, she would tell us stories of how she had to take her own chair into military aircraft;  they would then fly and land on airstrips where they met people who were so devastated by destruction and starvation that her heart wept.  (If you are interested in some more information about this, this article entitled Thunder Road is an extraordinary collection of stories from this period...be forewarned it is a long and big file.) Why does a young woman with small children leave her family and go into dangerous territory to deliver relief supplies?  Perhaps, it's because instinctively she knows that what her corner of the world, brutalized  by the despair of war needs most is Love

The need for love remains just as urgent today.  I have found it increasingly relevant in my real estate career in Grand Rapid, Michigan. It is not just a requirement for resolution of global and international conflicts, it also impacts and is needed in our daily lives. The Beatles turned out to be modern day prophets.  There are certain phrases in the song  "All You Need is Love" that seem amazingly optimistic:

 There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy

Nothin' you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothin' you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy...

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need (x2)

But it's true!  Nothing is impossible that can't be done through love. Yes, it is something that must be learned but I wouldn't say it's easy.  Love is much bigger and much more powerful than our common everyday usage suggests.  The ancient Greeks understood the profound depth of this word and had 3 different words to describe love, Eros, Phileo & Agape.  The implications and power of each of each of these words differs immensely. In the biblical literature of the New Testament, one of the Greek words Agape is illustrated by self-sacrificing, giving love to all--both friend and enemy. This is NOT easy...but we must pause to ask ourselves...what is more difficult...the horror and devastation of war, strife and hatred, or choosing to learn to embrace the principles embodied in Love?

Read Part 2: 

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