The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Love Wins

Wow. We've got a Game! Less than one month into starting my new coaching business, and I'm already cruising with great, committed clients. I'm doing it two days a week: Tuesday and Thursday. Might add Wednesday, once I figure out how to write around my client calls. Had two breakthroughs yesterday, real solid chunks of gold, and it absolutely warmed my heart to see people approaching their dreams. Life is good.

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And that brings me to another thing. Nancy shared some very strong emotions, and indicated feeling at a dead end. Nancy, I believe in love, I really do. It's not too late if you are willing to do Whatever It Takes to move yourself to a position where your Soulmate can find you--so long as those actions are not in conflict with your core values. The voices in your head are loud, but I'm willing to add mine, if I can be of service. I try not to talk about direct business things on this blog, considering you guys Family, with whom I can just vent. But my "Free Coaching" offer I've made to my other lists is open to you, too. If you would do me the honor, Nancy, I'd be happy to speak with you. Email me your phone # and best contact time at LIFEWRITE@AOL.COM, and I'll get to you just as fast as I can.

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That goes for the rest of you guys, too. If ANY of you have been looking for a coach, I recommend it. And like the candy man says, the first one is free. Heh heh.

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Ethiopian Infidel:

I understand your point. But stand by my point. I love my enemies, those who have hurt me in the past, those who tried to destroy my career, those who may confront me in the future. Because I have no fear, no doubt, that I can love someone and put a bullet right between their eyes. I can love the sinner and hate the sin. Loving an evil person would be tinged with sadness for the loss of potential...and perhaps even the commitment to help them by removing them from the world before they can further despoil their potential.

By loving true enemies I risk condoning their violations? Really? Not if your values are clear. Not if you love yourself as I love myself...or even more specifically, love the little boy inside me, and have sworn to him on pain of death that I will NEVER allow anyone to harm him again. And that includes making actions that are out of alignment with my values. It ain't that kind of party. My body is not real in any ultimate way. I am an interference pattern of genetics, energy, and information, here for a little while before it disperses...and all that will remain is the One who has watched the "I" do its dance. If I feel that way about MYSELF, how the hell easy do you think it is to feel that way about others? Even those I love most? And if I feel that about those I love, how easy do you think it is to feel that way about people who mean me harm? Violate the values I think make this Dream worth dreaming?

No. My heels are dug in. You can kill me, but you can't move me. I will stand up for those who want to communicate, tell the truth, build an accurate map, have health, love, success--even if some of the things I say are controversial. No, I've never backed off believing the Beauty/Power equation is a valid way of looking at the universe. But just as aircraft engineers are empowered rather than weakened by their knowledge of gravitation...and can use it to produce vehicles that the ignorant would think in defiance of basic principles, so having genuine clarity about the way the world works can allow you to "cheat" around the edges. Find a way to your goal even if you are dealing with massive damage. YES. I can love someone and stop them, hurt them, kill them if necessary. Anger is interesting, but what that really is is fear that you will be hurt if you drop your guard.

Friends, my guard is ALWAYS up. I am perfectly aware that I've lived my life surrounded by people who considered my group sub-human. In frickin' FIRST GRADE I was shunted into the slow reading group on the basis of race alone. My eyes were opened quite young. But if I let them make me afraid...and if that fear turns into anger...then my enemies win. And they will not. I stand for love. Period. For seeing the potential in human beings even when they themselves do not. Period.

And I've made a commitment to make the world safer for children. Period. That any child, any time, is safe in my presence, that I will place my life between them and harm. Hell...I gonna die. Might as well die for something. And that means the child within us all. I have no taste for allowing the assholes of the world (love 'em!) to crap all over the good people, the people who have learned to express their God-selves, or the inner child that cries in the night, pleading with inner Mommy and Daddy to unite and protect.

I have a limited amount of time to play in this worldly game, and will not allow anything to stand between me and having the best, most hysterically fun time I can while I'm here. Love and fear compete for the same place in my heart.

Love wins. Period.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

The Orchid Hypothesis:

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene

Steve, if you haven't seen this article I think you will enjoy it.

Steve Perry said...

I'm not sure the term "love" would apply for me. I have few enemies, fortunately, but I find it hard to consider the term "love" appropriate if I am willing to put a bullet between his eyes. Hate-the-sin-but-love-the-sinner seems like a semantic word-game to me. You can't have a sin without a sinner ...

Lot of things and people I can apply the term "love" to, but I've never been of the mind that evil is like darkness, merely an absence of the light. Evil is, for me, a real thing, and I love it not -- and that includes those who do it. Redemption is for those who strive for it; actively and unrepentantly evil? Can't love somebody who offers that.

Daniel Keys Moran said...

The closest I can come on this one is Barnes's frequent comments about the little boy inside him ... no matter how awful a person is, there was a child there once who wasn't evil. You can talk to that part of even the worst person ... but that's about it. Sometimes that's good enough, and sometimes you're still in bullet between the eyes territory ....

Anonymous said...

"there was a child there once who wasn't evil."

There may have indeed once been a juvenile version of the offender who wasn't dangerous. However, if the adult who's sprung from that child has committed abominably heinous acts that threaten or harm innocents, I presume that kid's long gone. Wasted potential to live a full and happy life and enrich the world is always tragic. However, fulfilling that potential is a personal responsibility. It's not my responsibility to morn such waste when it involves an adult acting with access to full rational and ethical faculties that, as with most well-adjusted people, would restrain impulses to commit hideous acts. Baring offspring and loved ones truly worthy of the name, neither love nor hate can honestly be extended charte blanche. Love, hate and the varied emotional means between these extremes, which actually describe most feelings and relationships, are won or lost by actions.

Ethiopian Infidel