If only...

Is it possible to turn off love like a light switch?

My sixteen year old asked that question of me recently.

My response was, "Well, what do you think?"

She was confused. She wasn't sure. A good friend of hers has an older gay brother. Their family is a religious family and they have disassociated themselves from their gay family member. (Shunning would be the word I would use, but hey, pretty it up if you must.)

So I said to her, "There is nothing, absolutely nothing that could make me stop loving you."

I think this is what she needed to hear and I think it made sense to her only because this is what she has thus far experienced in our relationship. The words you see, are empty if they are not lived.

I am convinced that when we love, love compels us to overlook the little slights and the bigger hurts. Love compels us to forgive and to offer compassion in the place of condemnation.

When I think of what that family is doing to one another for the sake of their religiosity, my heart breaks for them. My daughter's young heart cannot comprehend the "why" and neither can I really; but we both see that rejecting love comes at a great cost. We see it in the pain that this family is experiencing.

I think that it's a kind of blasphemy when we say no to love. Perhaps it is the only true blasphemy...

Either way, I pray for the courage to love. I pray for the courage to love in the face of sorrow, and disappointment. I pray for the courage to love in those unavoidable moments of betrayal. I pray for the courage to love without expectations or conditions. I pray for the courage to love those who are different from myself.

If only our love would fall like the misty, Oregon rain outside my window. Then perhaps we could flood the rivers of injustice and sorrow with the living waters of mercy and grace.

Oh, if only....