LOVE WINS - Friday, October 2, 2020

 LOVE WINS - Friday, October 2, 2020

Let’s start with the question:  “How is your swimming?”  

You are thinking “Huh?  Where is Karen going today?  Swimming?”

On one of my few recent times watching television, I was watching salmon swim upstream to lay their eggs.  (When I walk on the treadmill in my apartment’s exercise room, I ‘numb’ myself with television).

Salmon come from eggs laid in mountain streams.  The fry (small baby salmon) grow and eventually find their way to the ocean.  But, as their natural life comes to an end, the swim upstream - where the female salmon will lay millions of eggs, and the male salmon will fertilize them.  (I get a smile as I think of these baby salmon as “fish fry”!!)

But, what does that have to do with LOVE WINS?

I’m getting there!!!

Going upstream is a problem for the salmon.  These streams are not slow meandering bodies of water, but rushing water coming out of the mountains. The journey up the rivers - going upstream against the current is difficult.  There are rapids and whitewater around rocks.  There are bears (at least in some parts of the salmon country) that love to have salmon lunches.  They have to leap to get up the river.    BUT - THEY DON’T GIVE UP!!!  When we lived in Oregon, the fishery people had built “fish ladders” to help the salmon get past the dams.

*****

I’ve been writing about “LOVE WINS” for a couple of months.  Sometimes it is like the salmon - we are swimming upstream against the current.  It would just be easier to float downstream - to be like others, to complain, whine, judge - and hate.  

To let LOVE WIN in my life, it is a bit of a daily struggle.  There are those times I don’t really want to love.  In this political season, I want to be like the others and take pot-shots at candidates I don’t like. (And, I’m trying to LOVE all people).  

That voice just outside my brain says “Go ahead, go to the dark side - go ahead, hate, let hate fill you”.  But the voice inside my brain says “Never give up, never give in.  LOVE WINS, LOVE WINS.  Keep swimming upstream.”

*****

So, how about a little checkup?

In my estimation, I’ve said “LOVE WINS” a million times!!  (Okay, I wasn’t counting).  I’ve put it on my sidewalk by my apartment.  Maybe somebody walking by will look and say “what does that mean - that love wins”.  Maybe it will be in their brains for an hour or two.  Maybe at some quiet time during their day, “LOVE WINS” will pop up their thoughts.  Maybe instead of saying something nasty to another person, they think to say something kind?  

*****

I know some of you read this blog frequently.  Is “LOVE WINS” in your thoughts?  Can it transform you? Can you fight the current, the rocks, the rapids, and the bears to go against the crowd?  Can you swim upstream?  

As this is published, there are 32 days until the election.  And, If I am correct, there will be 32 days of throwing suspicion (or mud) onto one candidate or another.  You (and I) cannot control the hate that seems to flow so easily at this point in an election, but you can’t let it affect you.

Remember the salmon - go against the flow - stand out from the crowd - show them that LOVE WINS!!!  

LOVE DOES WIN!!!  

Galatians 6:9 says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  Don’t give up!!

HUGS!!!

Karen

Postscript (P.S.).  No, I am not perfect, no, I am not there yet.  Like the salmon sometimes it is one step forward (or one jump forward) and two steps back.  A few weeks ago, I said something that wasn’t very loving.  How did I let that (a) into my mind, and (b) out of my lips?  Of course, the thoughts about NOT loving are always close - but I need to LOVE!!  

I have to crowd out those thoughts with this: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud”.  Even when the salmon is tired, it is ‘forced’ to keep going, that “force” in its brain says “no stopping, I must get to the right place to lay my eggs - no stopping”.  And, like the salmon - some of whom don’t make it ‘home’, I have to keep trying.  And, I am admonished to “not become weary in doing well”!!