More love February

The multi-cultural festival has begun!  This is a great time to be loving and learning other cultures.  Last night, I went with a friend to the Arabic poetry reading event.  It was beautiful – not everything was in English, but even when you can’t understand the language you hear the rhythm and the power and the emotion.

Afterwards, my friend came home and we ate lots of icecream.  Icecream is an easy sort of love to give.

  It’s still really hot,here in Canberra.  Or as one poet called it “the capital of serenity and meditation”. Tee hee!  Is that just a more polite way to say there’s nothing to do here?

A reason to celebrate

Today is the birthday of a special friend.  I have bought flowers and printed out all the templates from hoperevo.  I’m hoping we can let them free together.

My birthday friend is at the heart of my urban family.  Or maybe better than the heart, he is the hands – the one that pulls us together, remembers all the birthdays, helps us move, fixes the stereo, organises dinners and reunions…

There is a reason for the hope notes.  He struggles.  He feels pulled between the living he makes and the life he wants to lead.  When he can’t find the soul in the work that he does, he feels drawn to extravagant acts of philanthropy – volunteering in Cambodia, building schools in Nepal.  Somehow, for him, there is no middle ground.  Each feels untenable.

I am in awe.  I know my life is here, built around my heart.  I am looking for work that feeds my soul, but my vision doesn’t take me quite as far.   So I watch him struggle, and try to be the sort of friend he needs.  The hope notes are not an attempt to appease his inner do-gooder.  But I hope in sharing them, he will find some peace in the midst of his struggle.