Rethinking love

"Now I may have faith to make mountains fall,
but if I lack love then I am nothin' at all."
~Lauryn Hill

There are many instances of heroism in life; sometimes they go unpublished and unspoken. These women pictured I wish to exploit as much for their perseverance as for their unshaken love. Their example is as precious to me as a letter from my Beloved and while they err, they are beautiful.

Walking in a woman's shoes is often confusing and dangerous. Some of us seem to be passing each other with a quick judgement, "You have something I don't and my man better not find out." Then some of the opposite sex we pass are calling out to us, "Hey, baby, I see you." But it isn't often we find true heroines that portray strength amidst the crowds of dust. Not often do they touch our lives so gently we hardly notice until we never see them again.

*****

Mrs. Smith, who is pictured at the top, is usually crowded by young boys and girls. Any of those mama-people you meet in life always stick to your brain cells like peanut butter on bread. I feel her warmth even now as I reminisce. She took me in her loving arms when I last saw her and did not hesitate to tell me how happy she was to see us. To the boys who are struggling with growing into a black men in a society that is still not sure what to do with them, Mrs. Smith tells them "I be lookin' for you in da neighborhood. You not even know I dere, but I be lookin' for you." Her words are playfully admonishing but sincere. Who else is looking out for these boys? Or for any of the children in who's nobility she so believes?

A few days ago, Lynn decided to take Tuesday and Thursday afternoons off to serve. She offered to accompany us into the neighborhoods on any of those afternoons. That very Thursday I took her up on her offer. When she picked me up in her little Toyota Corolla, the windows of which roll down by hand (literally you have to push them up and down with your hands and secure them with a screwdiver or piece of wood to keep them in place), she was clearly frazzled. The car had been making a strange noise as cars often do on the island with the very steep hills and potholes. This sound was particularly frightening. Thinking it was the axel, we pulled over. Assuming this was the end of our attempt into Lindbergh my skin prickled when she suggested we take the Safari. Despite being tired at the end of a long day working hours in the studio, Lynn always greets us with hugs and kisses on the cheeks and makes every effort to be present both physically and spiritually at all things to which she has committed.

I have had the great privilege of staying with the altruistic Natalie ("Mafalie") who is pictured cooking with Lynn. Never married, Natalie is certainaly not pining for a husband. Waking with the sun she spends at least one hour every morning meditating and praying. "I try to think of some way I can help someone," she tells me. One day she came home, tired from having taken care of 30 children at the daycare all day ("It's not about babysitting, you know, daycare provides so much more than that") and made three phone calls, simply to check on people and make sure they were alright. Her mother used to always visit people and you can tell the sense of altruism was passed along to Natalie. A disabled lady living on the mountain near the Center relies on Natalie for groceries, company, and home-cooked meals. I once witnessed Natalie, in the slimy darkness, watering plants by hand with 10 water jugs brimming over. She won't take compliments and she has a bad stomach that leaves her eating very little at very random hours. Dismissing my apology for having missed dawn prayers she reassured me, "You have to be true to yourself, and if you are wearing yourself out you will never be able to serve." But I know her life is not reflective of the wisdom she shared during that pitiful state in which she found me.

Magda paused when we asked her why she had moved from Germany to study at the University of Michigan and began hanging out with the African Student Body, "Well, they seemed interesting." Pictured on her husband's desk are Magda and her husband, Alan, gazing and smiling at each other as lovingly now as in the picture on the wall of them gazing at each other at their wedding. Interracial couples--so I've heard--are often tested. What kinds of tests this woman has experienced I cannot imagine. All I know is she has done many things that expand her comfort zone so that she is impossibly daring.

Finally our beloved landlady, Jan, is writing a book I cannot wait to read. She hosts a Dominican boy whose mother has breast cancer so that he can work rent free and send the money home. One of the neighborhood prostitutes, whom Jan had taken under her wing in an attempt to help, was murdered a few days before we arrived in our aparment. Jan was devasted. Almost toppled by her grief she instead became relentless in her quest for justice. Planted next to this young woman's house was a lime tree, which Jan plans to rescue as a memorial. After giving birth to her daughter, Jan was diagnosed with Lupus and soon lost most of her hearing. For twenty-five years this woman has worn a not-so-useful hearing aid. That hasn't stopped her from captaining a sail boat through the open ocean with a broken foot, trying to remodel a home in one of the riskiest neighborhoods in St. Thomas, and performing small acts of service whenever she can. "Can-do Gals" is the logo on her T-shirts that she markets to empower women. A few days ago she slipped a one-hundred dollar bill into the wallet of a struggling college graduate woman. When one of her tennets was accosted by a customer at the corner store, Jan marched down and firmly and loudly admonished the clerk, "How can we turn this neighborhood around if you're letting stuff like this go on?!" Only once have I seen Jan let her guard down. I suppose even can-do gals feel pain.

****

These women got me rethinking love. I recently re-read some sections of a book that also guided my reflections.

"If I love you, I need not continually speak of my love--you will
know without any words. On the other hand if I love you not, that also will you
know--and you would not believe me, were I to tell you in a thousand words, that
I loved you."~`Abdu'l-Baha

"Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, a Baha'i teacher in whom `Abdu'l-Baha placed the greatest trust, once analyzed the concept of love for humanity in a talk given to a group of friends. He explained how easy it is for any one of us to sit comfortably in a house with a nice garden and say "I love humanity." But, according to the Mirza Abu'l-Fadl, love only becomes real when it is tested. Only when we have fought the battles of love and have time and again been wounded for the sake of love, can we utter the sentence "I love" with authority and assurance. So, he said, a person who wants to create love within himself must test himself and see if he meets all the conditions of love." ~Ruhi Institute

Love is a binding force. It is not a mere concept that floats on the breezes. It is real and pulses through people to elevate the level of their conversations so that ideas may emerge. Without love, there would be no reason for life. To what would we wake without the longing love brings us to please our loved ones. These women are simply a handful who contribute their days to manifesting this saturated condition in their actions and they never find such a thing easy, but they never give up hope.

Honestly, this island couldn't make it through the day without their love.