A little extra love

I found myself unexpectedly back in school this week; not as a teacher or a student, but as an EA. 

In a whirlwind 10-minute tour and outline of my duties (mostly covering lunch breaks and other duties for actual EAs), I got a bird's eye view of the million moving parts that make an elementary school run.

While I've looked at school as both a student and a teacher, I've never peeped into it from the perspective of an EA. My tour guide showed me a room for body breaks and the walking path for kids who need a few minutes out of their classroom and posters with emotional regulation reminders and in the middle of it all she said "there are so many kids who just need a little extra love."

And like

I kept on walking like an actual normal human but inside I felt like a field full of fireflies, a night sky full of stars. 

Because this is our whole beautiful heartbreaking hope-giving point.

(Love God, said Jesus, and love everyone else. Love your neighbour as yourself.)

I have lived for almost 39 years and my life has been filled with what I imagine is the usual mixture of gladness and sorrow and I have been blessed in so many ways and yet I can't think of any good reason for sticking around this place except for love.

They say there's nothing new under the sun: matter may change shape and form but the sum total of matter stays the same. Whatever we do, we do with the stuff we've got. And we get to try our hands at alchemy and turn what we've got into love.

I mean - we can do the opposite too. We can take our person and energy into the day and spread rage and leave people cringing in our wake. We can leave filth and darkness and agony and hatred and apathy.

But, we can - and so many people do - take a morning cup of coffee and a few pieces of toast and walk out into the world and expend that energy as kindness. We get to take these bodies we're in and work gentleness into the places that surround us, create warmth and light and cleanliness and beauty. We get to inhale the air and speak words that comfort, words that inspire, sing songs that awaken whole rooms inside.

We get to take what we've got, and give a little extra love.

And there are a whole lot of people that need a little extra love.

xo.