PEACE

Love and Fear

     Love is a very, very emotionally-charged word that means so many different things to so many different people depending on the topic, the person, the person's age, and the specific situation. From biblical sources to volumes of books on the subject it is clear that love is best understood as a verb (action). It is also clear that love is very powerful. At times, love is so powerful that it can calm the savage beast in all of us. I have often heard people say, “kill your enemies with love." The translation is that you are killing the anger and opposition in your enemies toward yourself as it is difficult to be angry at someone is smiling at you and being nice to you.

     Others talk about the levels of love. For some students “hanging out” is an expression of love or caring about other. For other students “spending the night” or having a “sleep over ”with friends is all about expressing a closeness which is another type of love. Boy-girl friendships can become more emotionally involved which leads to a more loving and caring about each other more than others. Parental love usually means giving up, doing without, and thinking about the family's needs beyond our own even if it means mom ends up in the hospital from total exhaustion.

     Traditional love relationships between two people usually begins with dating, becoming more serious about each other, discovering that you both have things in common, realizing that this relationship could be permanent, becoming engaged and finally setting the date for becoming husband and wife. Knowing that divorce rates are approximately 50% for first marriages, children know that there is something missing in the processes of “choosing Mr. or Mrs. Right” for a lifetime relationship. Others have said that they would never develop a loving relationship with another person towards the goal of “getting married.” This would be impossible because individuals are constantly changing. The person they are in their twenties is totally different than the person they are in their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond. What are the odds of a husband and a wife changing absolutely together at the same time in the same direction? Some would say that the odds are more than one billion to one.

     Some very insightful scholars on this subject would share that loving someone takes time. Real love is about knowing another person's thoughts, weaknesses, blemishes, secrets, disappointments, frustrations, anger, and fears and still loving the real person behind the different masks and disguises that cover-up our true identity. Are we loving the human shell or are we loving the spiritual person inside that human shell?

     Many authors write that love is discovering that we are spiritual people living the human experience. Yet other authors say that too many people in western culture live a dual life of desperation on the human plane; thus, they struggle daily with the concepts of good and bad, pleasure and pain, wealth and poverty, and success and failure. This constant struggle is why many individuals have no peace in their lives, die of heart disease or cancer at early ages, or cannot find purpose in their lives. Is it true that many spend their careers climbing the ladder to success only to find when they reach the top that the ladder is on the wrong wall? The tragedy of this repeated scenario is that only when the individual reaches the top of the wall after years of struggle does it become obvious that all this time and energy was for the wrong reason. In the meantime the family, friends, and community become almost emotionally invisible. The children grow up to be adults and we really do not know them because we had more important priorities during their childhood.

     Many gurus on the topic of love talk about the importance of least effort, peace of mind, detachment, synchronically, synergy, flow, understanding, detachment, the non-dual plane, the higher self, the enlightened person, old and new souls, spiritual missions, universal intelligence, and the soul's eternal life. These concepts open up the possibilities to think of ourselves far beyond the daily routine of our human existence. These concepts give us new paradigms to ponder and reflect upon each day. In reality, we have more influence upon our families and those within our sphere of travel than we know. For many families, this does not become apparent until a loved one dies and we see this massive outpouring of people coming to the funeral and reflecting over the years of our loved one's life.

     Over the years, I have heard many people say, “there must be more to life than this.” Others have lamented, “there must be a heaven after life, because this life is pure hell.” At times, I have heard my father say, “I am getting very nervous because too many things have gone too well to too long.” When I repeatedly heard these emotions expressed, I was always bothered by the reality and the feeling of entrapment that was being expressed with such negative emotion and desperation. I always felt that there is another dimension that is missing here, but I cannot find it.

     From one perspective, love begins by detaching from people and things. This means that you really own nothing in your human life. Everything you love and own eventually dies or moves on to someone else or to some other place. You are left with your memories, your feelings, your track record of helping others, and your ability over the years to forgive others who offended you. The New Testament of the Bible repeatedly speaks of love as the primary emotion and the primary action that needs to be expressed above all else.

     Thus, we receive strength by accepting our role and our place in the universe. The universe (one song) includes many moving parts that revolve and rotate everyday with least effort. There is a constant flow. The only time that this flow is disrupted is when we express our judgment about the flow in the universe. The seasons cycle on schedule, the planets revolve on schedule, the earth rotates on schedule, and the moon cycles on schedule. The crops that farmers plant in the spring and are harvested in the fall are on schedule. There is no method where one can microwave the activities of the universe or the process of producing corn. There is no quick fix. With this acceptance, we can be at peace and begin to love all that is within our universe. At this point, we begin to understand the grand plan of the universe and how we and all within our sphere of influence are to interact. That interaction is love.

     Teachers and parents are in the most important roles for children. As such, they need to find as much love and forgiveness as possible to effectively interact with their children both in the classroom and at home. It is easy to love a cute child who is ultra-complete with a high I. Q., a bubbling personality, and a commitment to athletic excellence. However, what happens when a child is non-compliant, suffering from a genetic obsessive-compulsive disorder, and is very controlling. This is the child who challenges your level of love and forgiveness. This is the child who determines whether or not you are living a spiritual life in a human container or a human life in a spiritual container.

     Who teaches the doctors who discover the cure for diseases? The answer is teachers. Who teaches lawyers to defend children who have been abused and neglected. Than answer is teachers. Who teaches the architects who design beautiful structures and landscapes. The answer is teachers. Who teaches teachers the sacredness of teaching a child. The answer is teachers. Often the general public forgets the power of teaching. A good teacher implants their values and ideas within the hearts of students for life.

     Every student is going to be a teacher in their adult years and influence many people within their sphere of influence. Every student needs to find the teacher within themselves for the self-motivation and self-discipline necessary to be successful. Every student needs to know that being successful is a very normal activity, and being willing to learn from others in all situations is the first step to success.

     The ultimate expression of love is to know that we are all connected within the universe, people, animals, plants, the earth, the sky, and the solar system. We connect with people, plants, and animals as our destiny plays out from chapter to chapter. Ultimate love is infinite patience. Ultimate love is detachment in order to flow. Ultimate love is knowing our enlightened higher self that lives within our soul. Ultimate love is knowing that God lives within us, knows us, loves us, and is helping us everyday with our life's mission. The question is, “are we listening.”

     The opposite of love is fear, but many people think the opposite of love is hate. It is common to hear story after story about individuals having a love/hate relationship with their friends and family members. Motherhood is often described as a mother's love/hate relationship toward their children and their children toward their mother. Others have said,“ you cannot live with mom and you cannot live without mom.” The truth is “there is nothing like a mother's love.” Many mothers have said, “When my children were small, they stepped on my toes, but when my children grew up, they stepped on my heart.” Thus, love and hate are extreme emotions that many times are coupled. It is often impossible to tell the extreme emotions of joy and grief. The facial expression, the tears, and the sounds of extreme emotions are often very similar. Fear is one of the most emotional words in the English language. The dictionary definition of fear is as follows: A painful emotion excited by an expectation of evil or the apprehension of impending danger. The key words in this definition are “expectation” and “apprehension”. The most famous quote on the topic is from the famous speech by President Franklin Roosevelt when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This became the theme song of an era in American history that was in desperate need of an emotional boost. Many psychologists would say that the only thing individuals need to fear is ignorance. Others say that the one's enemy is ignorance. Either way, fear is very debilitating, and has been historically the root of much individual despair.

     A phobia is when the fear is persistent and no matter how hard one tries, the fear simply ,does not disappear. A phobia or fear can be very obvious; such as, a fear of snakes, alligators, spiders, crowds, sharks, or dark basements. However, a phobia or fear can be very subtle; such as, a fear of public speaking, authority figures, consequences, AIDS, religions, ethnic origin, gender, and failure. Fear can lead to bigotry and anger which can lead to frustration and payback which can lead to negative behavior in the form of verbal or physical assaults.

     Courage is defined as working through the fear. That is, no matter what the fear is at the moment it is not going to deter in any way the mission or the goal. We discover children with lots of courage who are suffering intensely from cancer or other diseases. We hear great heroic stories of soldiers in the line of duty risking their lives to save others with courage that is more than super-human. There are repeated newspaper accounts of mothers exhibiting extraordinary courage by lifting cars off their children following unfortunate accidents.

     Perfectionism is a combination of the need to passionately control 100% of one's environment and at the same time the fear of failing at the this task. Sensing/Thinking students are the type of learners that fit into the category of “perfectionist.” Musicians, mathematicians, accountants, architects, doctors, and surgeons tend to be driven by the correctness of every little detail and the horror of even a single mistake.

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