♪ Let Your Love Show

My kin-dred spirit Sam attends Early Childhood Education classes in the same buildings that I did, back in the Dark Ages, at RCC. Despite the fact that she or her sisters could have BEEN one of the little darlings on our playground tucked away on the corner of the football field of the College, she now shares the same enthusiasm for the wee ones as I did at her 20-something age -- and still do. No doubt she has read and researched Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,  Maria Montessori, Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, and a plethora of other academic  explorations in the field of ECE, all designed to help slightly older children help educate the rug rats.

      Some <cough> twenty-something years later, the name of the researcher escapes me, but the story of how crib slats evolved stayed with me from the tender years at RCC. Orphaned babies in England after WWII had a huge mortality rate -- until an astute nurse noticed that the little ones responded so mightily to the faces of the nurses peering into their cribs, but were listless for the rest of the time, and failing to thrive. When slats were cut into the sides of the cribs, allowing the compartmentalized toddlers to see and react to one another, the mortality rate dropped in half.

       Human interaction IS vital to existence. Most obviously for propagation of the species, but even more basic – we need to be loved.

        A friend of mine stated recently, “ You can’t see it, can’t taste it, can’t hear it, can touch it, can’t smell it…yet it is a sense that we require to survive.” Those little orphans needed to see their nursery-mates smiling in between the stretches when the nurses could hold them.  It’s why our eyes glisten when we get close to home after a long absence, why we bind with newborns that have just torn up our bodies, why we long for companionship and acceptance from infancy on.

      Love is mentioned in the Bible more often than any other topic… and if you don’t believe in God or Jesus, you still know love. If you are opposed to religion as a load of hogwash from ancient times, I agree.

    Religion has nothing to do with love. Religion is a set of rules based on obligations to earn spiritual favor.

     A carpenter from Nazareth lived his life opposed to religion, and preached love instead. Those in power attempted to catch him breaking their religious laws time and again. When asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “Love your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind”, followed by “and, love your neighbor as yourself.”  There was no offering of turtle doves or rendering a bull on an altar, no church dogma or denominational credo…simply an admonishing to love the Creator with everything you have and in so doing, love others also created – including yourself. The Amish state it more simply in an oft-printed and stitched acrostic.

Jesus first

   Others next

You…last

     Again, if you don’t ascribe to Christianity, you still know love. You still need love. 

     Mother Teresa, one of the least aesthetically attractive people ever, held a beauty that movie stars can never capture.  She loved so many children that she carried their glow within her.

    Millions of kids have carved out pumpkins for tonight’s Hallowe’en festivities. Ancient tales state that jack-o-lanterns kept the devil away from the dearly departed. Seeds and strings were scraped out of less than beautiful gourds and transformed into glowing works of art. Sam will spends countless hours in her chosen vocation creating works of art in pumpkins and other media. You can be a work of art too, even though preschool was a long long time ago.

     In my trick-or-treating days, a Bellamy Brothers song used to pour out of the transistor radio in my room. 

Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams
And let your love show and you'll know what I mean- it's the season
Let your love fly like a bird on the wing
And let your love bind you to all living things
And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean- that's the reason.

     No matter if you think Jesus is a fairy tale, or not, let your love show… lighting the lives of others… and your own. 
    The carpenter from Nazareth had the same idea...