What does "love" mean? A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds. The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. Here are some of them:
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love." – Rebecca, eight-years-old
"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." – Billy, four-years-old
"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." – Karl, five-years-old
"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." – Chrissy, six-years-old
"Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired." – Terri, four-years-old
"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." – Danny, seven-years-old
"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mom my and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss." – Emily, eight-years-old
"Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." – Bobby, seven-years-old
"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." – Nikka, six-years-old
"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." – Noelle, seven-years-old
"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." – Tommy, six-years-old
"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore." – Cindy, eight-years-old
"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." – Clare, six-years-old
"Love is when Mom my gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." – Elaine, five-years-old
"Love is when Mom my sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." – Chris, seven-years-old
"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." – Mary Ann, four-years-old
"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." – Lauren, four-years-old
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." – Karen, seven-years-old
"Love is when Mom my sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn’t think it’s gross." – Mark, six-years-old
"You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." – Jessica, eight-years-old
Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."
The varried answers garnered from both the study and the contest reflect a lot about our society as it stands and where it’s going, what future generations are already learning to value at such a young age, and they both lend a great bit of a view into ethical and moral insight. However, the response by Nikka was both out of the norm and it gave me a glimmer of hope, too. Again, her response was, "If you wat to learn to love better, you should start wth a friend who you hate." Little is she probably aware, but Nikka is wise beyond her six years.
People – or, as I’ve come to prefer to call the majority of society – sheeple have been bleating about how we need to change this and that before IT’S TOO LATE. "It" is never defined. That point of no return is never given a definition or description. Sheeple call for revolution, call for change, scream about global warming, saving the planet, and rising gas prices. Yet don’t go out and vote; install solar panels on their homes (or simply turn lights out in rooms when they’re not in use); use conservation measures around their homes or offices (like basic thermostat "smarts" at home or making sure that paper gets recycled at the office – as most offices do this these days); make an attempt at recycling (much less starting a recycling program in their area!); buy local; start compost heaps; carpool to work, church, school, or whatever; take public transportation (even from park-and-ride lots!); or trip planning and consolidating stops when running errands around town – especially for those sheeple in gas-guzzling SUVs who seem to bitch, whine, and moan the loudest about gas prices when they’re doing nothing to make the situation better. Sadly, this is the society that the next generation, children like Nikka, are coming into. It’s a world of apathy in many ways, a world where we’re not working toward love.
VNV Nation’s lyrics to Testament come to mind right about now: And I’m not the only one who thinks we’re trying to say :: To the heavens and all who hear us: behold all we have made! :: We bring destruction, we bring war without an end :: and we live in hope that tomorrow never comes :: We conquer paradise just to burn it to the ground :: And we build a future to honour pasts we left behind :: We bring destruction, we bring war without an end :: And then we live in hope that tomorrow never comes :: . . . :: When was the last day without war? :: We speak of greatness we have never been.
(ephemeral)