Love Letters

There was a man that I used to pass on my way into town for work.
His back was so bowed with age that his gaze was constantly on the ground, his gnarled hands clasped behind him as a counterbalance.
Without fail, he was always immaculately dressed in crisp khakis, a long sleeved button down shirt and a dark vest buttoned on top . The white hair was perfectly parted and combed.

He was always walking the same stretch of road that encompassed a steep hill, and every few steps he would stop and bend to the ground, his face set against the pain in his twisted back, reaching for the sun colored weeds that lined the path and sprang through the community sidewalk’s cracks.

He would leave a bright dandelion trail behind him every time I saw him, and he was always alone.

I always wondered what made him walk, even on the coldest days. What made him iron his shirt every day. What made him care so very much about a few weeds on land that wasn’t his.
I always told myself that I would stop and walk with him one day. That I would offer some companionship one day.

Yet I didn’t.

I have done this thing I wish I hadn’t:
I have become comfortable.
I have become safe.

With the years, I’ve grown accustomed to the certain security of limiting my thoughts to my own problems. My own plans. My own day. My aches. My pains.
I know the sidewalks my heart strolls down each sunrise and sunset. I rarely take a detour.

I came across a simple challenge early this week: MAKE LOVE FAMOUS.
Make it famous by encouraging those around you. By investing your heart into your brothers and sisters. By pouring out love to perfect strangers.
So I wrote my first love letter to a stranger this week.
I sat down and put pen to paper, sealed it up, and hunted for just the right spot to leave it.

The Washington sky was moody again – teasing us with early summer glimpses one moment, crying in indecision the next.

It was a rare occasion that I was out and about. I pulled my beanie off downtown in the fickle sun and looked around for a place to leave the paper, the ink still fresh and young.

I found a stack of lonely grocery carts and snuggled the envelope I carried between the uppermost metal bars. The next person who decided to pull out a cart would have it fall right into their hands: 3 anonymous pages. Like it was just waiting for them.
As the words had spilled out on innocent paper just hours before, I prayed for the mystery soul who would find it.

The challenge had been to write letters. Write letters of hope, of encouragement, of pure love – then leave them anywhere and everywhere around town for unsuspecting people to find.

I can do that.
You can do that.
Together, we can work to make love famous.

So often, I miss the opportunity. So often, I miss the potential within a day.
I fold my hands in my lap when they were made to reach out.
In a moment of possibility, I close the mouth that so regularly flaps about unimportant things.
I turn my steering wheel onto the path of least resistance.

But dear reader, know this: we are all capable of enormous, outrageous love. To quote my *challenger, the world needs, “LOVE. Pure, old-fashioned, never goes out of style Love. Ridiculous, oozing, cannot pack this thang into 140-characters kind of love. Fearless, bold, unstoppable love.” (moreloveletters.com)

Yes, Lord yes.

I stopped taking that dandelion road in November when I lost my job, but just last week – I passed the stretch again. The sidewalk was lined in rows of those sunny unpicked weeds, and he was nowhere to be seen.

Why had I waited to walk with him?

What am I so afraid of?

Jesus, save me from my comforts.
Break me of my need for the familiar.

It isn’t always easy to share love with strangers.
If I ever see the walking man again, I like to believe I’d stop and match my steps to his.

Until then, I’ll keep praying for my eyes to be truly open.
I’ll write letters on the days when the pain holds me back behind these glass doors.
I’ll carry them with me and plant them around town like wild dandelions for people to pick.

Because the world needs more love.
The world needs more heart.
The world needs more of your heart.

You are capable of enormous, outrageous love.
Let’s make love famous.