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It’s the end of my writing hour.  My son has just walked in.  I hear him in the kitchen and he’s eating the last of the butter burgers and hand cut fries.  He pours some tea and walks down the stairs into the basement.  Mentally, I’m checking on all of my cubs.  My mind also rests to that man, Himself, down the road.  I see him as I hope he is.  Resting.  Well.  And my good friend sleeping warm with puppy dreams dancing through his head.  I wonder if all six are well.  And I hope they will all be happy.  Now, unbidden and fleeting, the face of Sal races through my calming mind.  I see that blue eyed majesty looking from one of his parents to the next.  If you ever want to be a star have a baby.  You will never shine so brightly in all of your universe (at least for a few months and until they start driving).

            More and more, I think about the place of a person in a society.  The place of a society in a population.  The uses of a population in a nation.  And how that nation serves all.  For good times and better times and in times of upheaval there is always some advantage to the use of force.  When the internal locus of control is no longer present or has never been in place there is a need for an occupying body with the ability to corral the individual or the group into parameters which have been predetermined.  Force with changing parameters or force without some semblance of unilateral application only breeds chaos.  Chaos is only good for those who hold the keys to the tools of war.  Guns.  Field rations.  Camouflage.  Chains.  All see a rise in productivity during chaos.  And very few necessitated inventions of chaos have use when the fighting has subsided.

            In my world I have a place.  With the children I am a source of myriad things.  Food.  Laughter.  Cleanliness.  Advice.  Admiration.  An occasional cussing.  To babies and animals I’m a good friend who sees their humanity.  To my ears, babies don’t cry.  They protest.  In my sight, dogs who love to be close aren’t needy, they’re romantic.  I honour the protest as well as the romance because they are the authentic desires of soul.  I cannot force the soul.  I can only accept or reject.  I must do both out of love.  Force without love requires too much energy, waste, time, and for that matter loss.  I sit back and think of all the machinations I used to engage to maintain a semblance of power.  I had no power.  I was subject to the whims and needs of other persons.  When I relinquished control and sought acceptance, for some reason or another the line on my forehead vanished.  I was left with an underlying current of something very closely related to happiness. 

            Giving myself parameters but not limits was the next phase.  Again, I looked to examples from history and current issues in culture and international upheaval.  No sympathy for 9^th ward dead and displaced and smug receipt of hellfire and damnation on the backs of Haitians all because of something they can’t help.  Rather, two things, from the gods of this world and the God of the world:  poverty and Blackness.  These things I share with the island folks and the good brown people of New Orleans.  I’m poor and Black.  I had to make myself know, that if I were the body floating in Lake Ponchartrain or if my rotting leg was sticking out of some demolished family home, all who could not feel would find a way to say it was my fault.  The eyes would have no precipitation on my behalf. 

            I’m thinking about the elements of my universe and I have resolved to greet all of them with love.  I’m hoping that my love will guide their steps just a little bit.  I’ve studied how lack of love causes starvation and slow death.  Those who preside over nations such as Nigeria are severed from country and people.  There is no expectation that the ruler ship will be just, after all, it’s just another job.  I think that will always be the difference between America and every other nation.  You see, most of us actually love our country.  Most of us can sit down and connect, at least in times of trouble, with each other.  And you know what else I think?  I don’t think any other nation has the ability to do what we are doing.  For all of our racism, guns, and hate speech, we have a real love for our country.  Listen or sing any one of our anthems.  “Oh purple mountain majesties…”  We have love songs to the ground upon which we walk.  I’ve heard the national anthems of other nations and I was left with a, “now what the hell was that...” feeling.  Especially in our African Diaspora, our extended Black family worldwide.  Always reaching for what other nations have even if it has no alignment with who we are. 

            There’s the chaos.  Love turns chaos into ordinary pain or a time of trouble which then becomes a source of pride when the storm has passed.  Love turns sneering spectators into strong Samaritans willing to give all for a pitiful few. 

            And it’s the one thing in the whole wide world which cannot be forced.  I remember once I was sitting in a class in college.  I had been writing about seeing a small town in Georgia and how beautiful it was.  There was a lady in the class who was about 20 years older than me.  She had actually been grown or near-grown during the Civil Rights Movement.  She was very angry with me, “how can you say anything about the south is good?”  I looked at her as if she had committed a small blasphemy.  I asked, “what happened to you in the south?”  She replied, “I ain’t never been there and I ain’t never goin’”.  Wow.  I stopped talking.  There was no way I could take her to the smells and tranquility of walking through a rural field in Georgia or Mississippi.  There was no way she could take me to the terror she saw and experienced while watching the nightly news in sixties.  I had love and acceptance for that land.  She had no acceptance and could not love.

            And now I’ve finally come to the point.  Brought you through nations and cultures, people and personalities, all the way back to my half a century-old heart.  Without love there must be force and the force must be equal if not greater than the coming danger.  You cannot greet an invading army or an intruder with a basket full of flowers and a plate of cookies.  That is, not unless you really want to die while holding flowers and cookies. 

            I like to believe the elements of my universe summon me, call me, kiss me, hug me, wrap their bodies around me in good times and bad only for the reward of my reciprocation.  I’m leaning pretty heavily towards this hypothesis since I am poor and Black.  I can’t give anyone a job.  I can’t advance anyone’s career.  I can’t do anything but love.  And today, that’s more than enough for me.  The alternative always involves far more energy than I ever wish to possess.  I’m just not built that way.  And I accept it.  I accept me.