What About Love?
Listen to the radio. Love songs. Lots of love songs. Listen to your
heart. What do you beg for? To be loved. Oh, you can pretend to be tough.
But you cannot love life unless you feel love. We beg for love but what
if some politician stood on his soapbox and said "The answer to the
fear in this society is to love."??? What if the guy started singing
"Come on people now, smile on your brother. Everybody get together.
Try to love one another right now." Would you laugh him off his box?
Maybe that's why I can't get into politics. I actually believe that stuff.
I watched Nightline recently and listened to a panel of 3 "experts"
talk about the possible solutions to violent crime in our society. They
talked about tougher laws, better enforcement, longer prison terms, getting
the community involved in programs like "Neighborhood Watch."
None of them started singing "What about love? Doesn't anybody want
to love anymore?." And the statistics belied their proposed solutions.
Violent crime is down. We are squashing it with our fear. And our fear
is at an all time high. We lock ourselves in our houses. We are afraid
to make eye contact when forced to go out in public. We are afraid of each
other and it is paralyzing us as a society.
We are pushing ourselves into isolation. We are feeding our fear. We
call it our individual rights. Our right to be alone. Hell, it is our curse.
What about our obligations to each other? What about love? Doesn't anybody
want to love anymore?
We hold the key to love and fear all in our trembling hand. Just one
key unlocks them both. It's there at our command. Come on you guys. You
know the words. To hell with fear. Let's sing. And think. What happened
to those ideals we believed in? Where does our cynicism come from? Billy
Joel is keeping the faith. Rod Stewart is forever young. What about us?
What about love?
Why do we have abortion? We know deep down inside that it is life we
are destroying. Hell, our science shows us the hows and whys. But we are
afraid our daughters' lives are going to be ruined. We are afraid we will
be embarrassed by our children. We are afraid we are overpopulating our
nation and the world. We are afraid that the task of education is too daunting.
We are afraid that the ghettos will be filled with more poverty and crime.
We are afraid. We know it is human life but we are afraid.
We hold the key to love and fear. Just one key unlocks them both. We
give in to our fear. What do we get? More anger and fear. We get children
who wonder at troubling times if their mothers should ever have had them.
We get disrespect because of our hypocrisy. We get pushy when people push
back. Everybody is pushing and nobody is talking sense.
Why are we even considering physician assisted suicide? We have ourselves
so isolated by our rights and our fears and so free of our obligations
to each other, that when life stops being fun … suicide is the only logical
choice … so why shouldn't a physician help us? After all, we are afraid.
I spent 6 months helping my brother finish out his life on this earth.
It would be more appropriate to say that my brother helped me to find the
6 most meaningful months of my life. We leaned on each other and it was
wonderful. And I was not alone. We don't have to be alone. We hold the
key to love and fear. It is fear that makes us alone. It is love which
brings us together.
So what? You think I'm crazy? Maybe I am. There's a lot of crazy people
out there. Anybody want to sing? All we need is love … ya ti da da di da
… all we need is love … altogether now … all we need is love, love … love
is all we need … love is all we need … love is all we need.
Maybe I should run for president on that platform. What the heck. Come
to think of it, there was a leader who once said "We have nothing
to fear but fear itself." And a variation on the theme: "I have
seen the enemy and he is us." Perhaps those are presidential ways
of saying "All we need is love." Is this too easy an answer?
Fear is easy. Love takes courage of conviction. Let us make our profile
in courage. It is what we want. Let us stand for it. Sing with the fool
who would lead you. It is not me. It is not you. It is us. Let's sing.
Brian J. McMahon 797-5016 (Ok, I sent another letter. And I used another
naughty word. So sue me.)
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