A Place That Says, "I Love You"
I hope you live in a community that says “I love you”. To you, to others, to everyone, to itself. That says it out loud for others to hear and often enough for people to notice. That gives hugs. That builds statues and paints murals and gives awards to honor those who have cared the most. That watches movies together in a parking lot. That cleans up its trash because company is coming. That loves its old buildings down to their rotten bones. That uses the word "pride" over and over and over and over because pride is love that comes with proof and says, “This is why I love you.”
I hope you live in a community that says “I love you”. There's no doubt it has challenges, bad actors, things that need fixing. It should meet those challenges, out the bad actors, fix the things. But there’s a group of people who say, “I’ll get to loving you later,” believing that I Love You should only happen after all the challenges have been met, all the things have been fixed, and all of their imaginary and impossible standards of what makes others deserve love have been met.
Don’t listen to them. You can do both. We HAVE to do both. We need hard conversations and high standards, we need to do better, we need to hold each other accountable, we need to fix the things. But without love, what’s the point? Ego? Clout? The thrill of a “gotcha”?
How can you build a community by burning all the bridges?
I hope you live in a community that says, “I love you.” Because regardless of the state of things, people need to hear it. In a whisper, in a message, in a post, in a look. They need to hear you say it. They need to know that you think they are important. They need to know that they matter.
You matter. I hope that you hear it from others, too. But if you don’t, hear it again: you matter. You are important and we can’t do this without you. We need you, we need you, we need you. To fix the things and to help the people and to have someone to love and someone to love us back and so we can all walk out the front door in the morning on the way to work and see where we live as an act of mutual creation. A place with hugs. A place with movies and murals and trash and old buildings and pride. A place full of people who love each other, out loud and often, and especially in times where love is needed the most.
I hope you live in a community that says, “I love you.” If you don’t, be the one who starts.