love actually

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion, love actually is all around."
-- Hugh Grant in Love Actually

People sometimes peg me as a pessimist. Though I can see what they mean, I almost always disagree. When I get angry or sad or discouraged about the world my views are not just about seeing all the bad things, but about seeing how much potential there is for love. If love were in this place, things would be different. And it gives me hope. Because though I talk about all the things that are wrong, I act in ways that (hopefully) seek to explore the endless possibilities of the power of love. Acknowledging the things that are wrong means acknowledging that there is room for improvement. Granted, anger often has a destructive power. But I'd like to think that there is a type of anger that is good and constructive.

Sometimes you need to see the things that are wrong so that love can abound. For me, love is something that is most beautiful when the odds are against it. I am a hopeless romantic and when love seems to have no chance of surviving but does, I get the warm fuzzies like crazy. If you look at the world and all you see is the darkness then all the world will be is darkness. If all you see is the powerful taking advantage of the weak and provoking violence, greed, and oppression then you'll probably gather provisions, find a cave and cut yourself from all of those things.

But if you look at the world and see all the violence, greed, and oppression as opportunities. If you see that this violence could really be that peace; that oppression could really be this freedom; this greed could really be that gift, think of all the possibilities in which anger could become love!

This is a lesson I am still learning. Sometimes I do look at the world and think, "God, what are we doing to ourselves?" But slowly I am beginning to look around me and be inspired by the hurting and the broken. What would the world look like if we saw every sorry, broken down, despairing situation as an opportunity to inject love?

It would be truly awakening. Because love actually is all around. We just miss the places in which it already exists, or forget to inject it in places that are lacking.

Love is more powerful than hate. So take a look around you, go the the arrival gates of an airport, to the drive-in, to a sporting event, to the park. Turn off the TV and venture out into the world. Look around and you will see a world full of love. Places where different people somehow all manage to travel, watch, play, and live in harmony. Then, when you encounter injustice, remember that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Hate, anger, agression, violence, injustice, these are all times and places in which love is absent. So use the anger and fustration you feel and be encouraged to inject love into the heart of all the darkness. Because where love is, hate cannot be.

The world is full of love, sometimes it has merely been misplaced.