A friend recently turned me on to a Super Soul Sunday interview by Oprah with Stephen Colbert. He was his usual silly self. But he also showed his hand about a more serious subject – his spirituality. He talked a lot about the one thing he feels is missing most in the world – love.
As a practicing Catholic, Oprah asked Stephen how his faith sustains him. He quoted his mother, saying,
“In hardships in your life, try to look at this moment in the light of eternity. Try to see this how God might see it.”
And then he continued,
“You can try to see this present moment – if it’s good or bad – any hardship or victory – with humility, with acceptance and with love. You can’t love something until you can accept it.”
I love that last line. It’s really true.
Love is like the sun.
It’s always there, bright in the sky – or maybe eclipsed behind some clouds, or shining on the other side of the world. But it’s never NOT there. Yet when we deny its existence, it does feel as if it is not there. Love is like the sun.
Accepting that both are always there, and never go away – that they may only be blocked from our view right now – that is the actual Truth.
What separates us from knowing and believing this as Truth, is when the sun or a loving intention is not obvious to us in the moment. And then it happens again. And then again.
And over time we begin to believe that the separation and temporary absence of love and light is the ‘truth.’
But if that was so, if the ever-present sun was not the ultimate reality in our physical world – then we would never see the sun. In fact, it is the contrast between the sun’s presence and temporary absence, which demonstrates this Truth for us.
In the same way, when love isn’t present – in ourselves, in our loved ones, or even in our perceived ‘enemies’ – is it really gone? Or is it merely being eclipsed by other thoughts, beliefs or ideas? If we put our faith in the separation and divisiveness, and we treat each other as if people are their ideas – isn’t that like believing what our children say at 4 years of age still holds true for them at 14 or 24 or 44?
Can’t we allow for the possibility that people can and might discover new experiences that open their minds and hearts to deeper thoughts, beliefs and ideas?
Must we hold people forever to how we perceive them, based on our own limited perceptions of who they are?
How many times have you read stories and seen the memes about ‘judging a book by its cover’ – in that, we never know what people are actually going through in their lives, and that we need to give them space in our own minds. For an extreme example, take a ‘mass shooter’ – and how we never know what the tipping point is that takes one from personal suffering into committing brutality and murder.
This is hard, hard stuff. We can’t move from this place of perceived divisiveness in our society, until we begin to recognize the Truth about life and then operate from there.
Love and the sun never go away.
Stephen Colbert named it to Oprah, saying,
“The words of Christ speak off the page…It’s like He’s talking directly to us now….with a harrowing challenge…which is to Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies….Because every bit of darkness is only for now. The light always wins.”
I truly wish we could flood this world with art, entertainment and media that demonstrate this. We need more demonstrations of hope, on a day-to-day basis. We need more breakfast fuel for the soul when we wake up and face each new day.
We, the artists and conscious creators, have the opportunity to create this world. Every time we stare at the blank page.
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, like Colbert. These were potent times for musicians. He told Oprah,
“I, for years, was wondering what happened to socially conscious music. And I missed top 40 songs like…’Come on people now, Smile on each other – Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.’ That love is not a bad word…. That we can say love…or I love you… or love is the every only God… To say that love is the most important thing, and to mean it without embarrassment…”
Stephen went on to share about speaking with his friend a few months before going on the air with his own show, replacing David Letterman…about his deeper intentions for this next phase of his creative career and impact, saying,
“I don’t know how to do a nightly comedy show that’s also about love…but I’d like it in some way to be about love.”
And now he is realizing more and more that –
“…Anything is possible…The hope for love… And I think, now (what) we’ve found is that I love my country, I love science, I love facts. I love people regardless of their race or their gender identity. And the challenge now is …When we’re making jokes about people’s political action, it’s very hard to see them as more than their ideas. And you cannot love their ideas. You can only love their Selves. So that’s the challenge… the last challenge is to love the people you disagree with the most…that’s the harrowing challenge that Christ sets forth… because – loving the people you agree with, anybody can do that.”
To which Oprah countered, “That means you have to find a path to love Donald Trump.”
Maybe the path to love begins with compassion. First for ourselves, for feeling so challenged and afraid of ideas unlike our own. And then, compassion for others, who feel equally challenged and afraid of the unknown.
Perhaps as creators we can give voice to these universal challenges and fears that plague our thinking, eclipsing our view of the Truth. Maybe we can stand in the place of Love, and work backwards… demonstrating that all roads lead back to this place in our own hearts. Because –
“Love is not a bad word.”
© 2018 Deb Chamberlin