Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life. Albert Einstein
Is love the greatest force in the universe? Albert Einstein thought it was. The bible tells us it is.
My daughter and I decorated our Christmas tree yesterday and watched a movie “All Mine to Give.” In this 1957 movie based on a true story set in the 1850s, a Scottish immigrant family has six children and the parents both die. The mother on her deathbed tells 12-year-old Robbie, he is to find families for his brothers and sisters that have children so they won’t feel so alone, and to find a home for each one.
It’s Christmas Eve and they are allowed to spend Christmas together before the town steps in and deals with the orphans. He thinks of families he knows and how each of his siblings would fit into their life. A family with only sons might like a daughter. One child plays the violin so he goes to the only family in town that has a piano.
The woman who has been an antagonist wants the baby and he lies and tells her she’s promised to another family in the next town ten miles away. He puts the little girl in a sled and walks ten miles to the next town and comes across a prosperous-looking house with children’s laughter coming from it and they agree to raise his sister. He is going to the logging camp to work, where he’s already a coffee boy on the weekends.
This was a real tear-jerker showing the importance of family, community, and people rallying together to build a life.
We all have a relentless yearning to attach and connect, to love and be loved. This relationship hunger is the fiercest longing of the human soul. Dave Earley
When we don’t live in small communities we may think this kind of rallying together doesn’t exist. That helping neighbors and stepping in doesn’t happen because we have agencies for that. They had orphanages then but the children did not want to end up in one and thought if they asked for a home on Christmas Day who would refuse them.
We are told that people individually will step up where they will not when they are part of a group. When we are part of a group we know someone else can do it and we are off the hook. We’ve had instances where things happened and the police should have been called, but they weren’t because everyone thought someone else would do it.
We may think people were better, stronger, and more resilient in days gone by. They did what they had to do and they based their life on faith. People are still doing what they have to do and basing their life on faith. People haven’t changed; circumstances and even expectations have changed. We still get to make better and worse decisions as we go forward in life. We can see and expect the best in people or the worst, and we can treat others with respect and dignity or not.
It seems to me the better we treat other people, the more respect and dignity we see in others, we also see in ourselves. We can focus on the negative or the positive and we each have both in our nature. We can see beauty and bounty, or lack and ugliness. We can look at life in the 1850s and think how wretched it must have been, and for some, it was, as is life now for some, but it was also full of beauty, love, family, optimism, and hope.
We all have access to the power of love, faith, and hope to build a community.
There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about. Margaret J. Wheatley
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention. Oscar Wilde
Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don’t need a lot of money to be happy – in fact, the opposite. Jean Vanier
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
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