With Reckless Abandon

I was reminded today that it is our spiritual obligation to love one another with reckless abandon.

I read a post this morning by someone who was honoring a deceased friend.  Mysteriously, it is gone.  I would have copied it or linked to it or something.  But…it’s gone.  The essence of the post was this:

     People just need to love other people.  Period.

We do.  Really.  And nobody will remind you that love is the natural state of being than a child.

This evening, my little guy and I were waiting for my oldest to come out of his karate class.  There was another kid waiting out in the hall.  He was drawing.  His mother was further down the hall on the phone.  I was messing around with my little guy, dancing and jumping around.  He was copying me, so I tried to make it increasingly harder for my son to mimic my footwork.  He did pretty well.  We laughed.  The kid on the floor stopped drawing and started watching us.  He laughed, too.  My little guy noticed him, they exchanged a few glances, said a few things to each other, and then the door opened and kids started trickling out.  

We walked in and gathered up our own karate kid, and, as my oldest was putting his shoes on, my little guy said, “Dad, I have to run outside!  Quick!”

He ran outside, quick.

“What are you DOING?!?!” I called out after him.

He was standing in the hall, looking forlorn.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I had to say good-bye to my friend, but now he’s gone.”

He looked stricken.  I put my arm around him, and, before I could say anything heartfelt and consoling, he was off running and screaming with his brother.

It made me think about that post I read this morning.  My son reminded me that the default state of being for human beings is love.  We want to make connections.  We want to feel closeness.  We want to open our hearts to other people.  We do it effortlessly and selfishly when we are little.

We retain that despite all the ugly stuff that happens over the years.  I know that there are exceptions to the rule.  I’m not that naive.  However, we don’t totally lose it.  What we do it suppress it.  We control it.  We only let it come out under extremely rigid circumstances.  After all, it’s too strong a word to use irresponsibly, isn’t it?

I can think of a lot of other words we toss around with reckless abandon.

Why not love?  Why not love with reckless abandon?