This Is Tobey

   

This Is Tobey

He has taught me many things.

Mostly how to love.

What it means to be loved.

How to live simply

How to live in dependence of those who love you. 

How to not want anything else but to be in the presence of that love.

Tobey follows me.

When I’m home, he seriously follows me. As I walk around my house,he treads behind, a little slower these days because he's getting to be an old timer. Over the years i've learned that all tobey wants, is to be with me. I don't even live at home anymore and he still searches for me, goes into my room and howls, and is always waiting for me at the front door when I walk in.

The crazy thing is that i'm a MESS. Unworthy of such adoration. Sometimes I straight up ignore him for a few days. I forget to take him on walks, and more than once have forgotten to refill his water and feed him.

And knowing all this about me, my stumbling nature, Tobey still wants to be apart of my life.

It's that he knows something else about me.

He knows something worth noticing.

Kids in Chiapas, Mexico I had the pleasure to learn from and be humbled by

A friend of mine once told me about her experience in Nicaragua on a volunteer missions trip working with a  school for disabled children. The kids, she remembers, just wanted to be loved. They would run up to her and embrace her without judging who she was. All they knew was that she was wonderful, and worthy of love. They showed her how to love. They showed her how to be loved. Really working with any kids will show you this.


That they know something else about us.

Something worth noticing.

A life, a life without love, is lonely. It seems simple but it's at the heart of every social issue our species has ever known.

See rather than live a life of this love, we follow a less demanding route. It's the truth lurking  beneath why we have vices, why we watch so much TV, why we're so attached to our smart phones. Anything we do to self medicate is an attempt to replicate that love, it's a cry from souls, from our need to be loved. To try to, for a moment, feel less lonely. Or forget that we are lonely.

And whoever said you fall in love is lying. I'm calling it out.

Because you invest in  love. And because love takes compassion. And to have compassion is literally to have passion. And  passion? Passion in Latin means literally to suffer.

 TO SUFFER!

 It's mind blowing!

But who wants to suffer, right? Certainly not me!! Where's the not suffering page group on facebook? I'll be the first to like it. I'd rather self medicate. I'd rather forget. If at least for a moment. Because in a finite world, that's all it really lasts.

But what I've learned from tobey, is that sometimes, we don't want to believe that we are worthy of a love that has suffered for us. We don't want to bear the weight of such a sacrifice. Because we've done things that bring us shame, because we forget to give water to our dogs, because we would rather not work, than to work or not think than to think.

See at the core of not accepting this love, is really just not seeing ourselves as worthy. And if we're lonely, (which we are, it's just the reality) it's hard to imagine that we are worthy of anybody's love.

But this love is a love that looks out, over a nation that's aching, a crowd that is longing, and weeps. It weeps in solidarity, aches in compassion for those below, for those who suffer.

This love is a love that is patient.

This love is a love that is more than love.

What tobey knows about me, that is worth noticing, is that a  life, a life without this love is not a life worth living. A lonely life is not a life worth living.

There is something so pure about this affection that can be felt the moment we let go of our fears, and  especially our insecurities about being unworthy. Tobey, those kids my friend worked with… they know this truth so universal...

Nothing is more satisfying than to love, and to let ourselves be loved.

In a world so often overshadowed by darkness, greed, and injustice, our vision can sometimes get clouded. And there is a danger in becoming cynical, in developing an apathy that can become crippling. I only know this because I've been in those dark waters.

But the only thing that makes sense in a  senseless world...

Are moments when we experience affection like Tobeys', who nestles beside and quietly whispers

This Is Love

Moments when we experience kids running up to us with open arms demonstrating to us that

This Is Love

moments when we experience that earth shattering, reality redefining moment when we realize that our entire lives have been lived in fear. And anyone, which is to say all of us, who has contributed to this world of injustice is doing so out of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being unknown. Because we are cowards. We are cowards too afraid to admit our frailty and utter dependence upon this love.But perfect love casts out all fears. And the only way to really make a difference in this corrupt landscape is to realize that this...

This Is Love

"And we are put on earth a little space,

That we may learn to bear the beams of love"

let's take advantage of the little space that we have and learn to bear the beams of love.