Love.
The other night, the most surprising experience led me to feel grief and sadness.
I watched Michael Moore's documentary, "Where to Invade Next". I don't know what I expected, exactly, but it turned out to be a fascinating film -- he visited various countries with enviable programs and social systems, hoping to inspire Americans to adopt them: gourmet public school cafeteria lunches, homework-free schools, free university educations, incredibly long paid job vacations, excellent women's health care, civilized prisons, female prominence in all forms of leadership...basically, I don't know which was more stark: my incredulity that the (mostly) European countries have such people-friendly programs, or the incredulity of the Europeans being interviewed that we don't have them!
Initially, I felt uplifted. But soon I felt quite weepy. My life (and my relative inability to function in our much more cutthroat system) might (yes, "might") have been so much different in one of these countries. Even putting aside my specific upbringing and my efforts to take part in English church music, what would it have been like to live in a society that places a higher value on human life and self-expression? That supports people more warmly in their unique aspirations and individual journeys? That wants its workers and citizens of all ages to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled? Clearly, none of the countries featured is without huge problems, and things may have changed since the filming was done about a decade ago. But this movie caused me to reconsider the statement I made the other day about rarely seeing the Goddess in the world. By the final examples in Iceland, I could "see" the Goddess...while the institutions cited are still mostly patriarchal, the lives and values of women seemed to have had a greater transformational impact in these other countries than they have done over here. I felt sad for us.
As we near a new year where love may seem even more invisible than ever on the wider world stage, it becomes more important to make love visible in ourselves. To make love our "home". To base every action in love and beauty, whenever possible. (When it is not possible, just bless the situation and move on to one where loving and being loved comes easily.) The song is right, about love being all we need.
