I thought I would talk a little bit about love today. It appears we are lacking love in our lives, families, and communities, and that can be disheartening. Everyone needs love it provides hope, strength, and heals many illnesses. So what exactly is love? We hear the word often, and say the word but what is the true definition of love? Love is complex, it is a multifaceted human emotion that is characterized by strong feelings of affection, care, tenderness, and a deep attachment towards another person. It can be romantic, family bonds, and benevolence. If we look at our personal relationships and our communities, country and world we can see the lack of love for one another, but what has taken us so far away from each other? I think if we go back to the time when it appeared love was more prevalent in society, there was an order we lived by. Let's go back to the 60s and 70s, the order for families and communities were church, family, school, friends, and pop culture. In the 80s that order changed, it became family, school, church, and pop culture. Then, in the 2000s we had friends, schools, pop culture and church and unfortunately church has become the last on the list. That's how the change started, we started with church in the beginning, we had something that brought family and community together, we were taught love was important. But once the church started moving further down the list change was taking place rapidly. We started not standing for anything that would keep the love a part of our fabric, and if we stand for nothing, we fall for anything. If we fall for anything we are lead away from what is meaningful. I think if we stay off social media, be more present with the people who are important to us, we can bring back some of the love we are missing. All we have to do is to make a decision that we want to be more connected in real time, to hear a voice, or feel a touch. Prioritize a community with family and friends again, I believe more people are missing love than we realize. We hear a lot about mental health these days, but is it really mental health or just a lack of love? We have to start somewhere we have to put our guard down, and while lowering our guard, lower the cell phones and other devices. Invest as much time with each other that we invest on social media, and I think what we've been looking for we'll find again. Let's bring love back into our lives, and let the healing begin!
