“What brings you joy?”

“How I feel when I get to love others. When you open yourself completely, just like this, and you’re just there in that moment with them and for them, and you tell them you love them, and you mean it, and they don’t know what to do with it so they just take a moment to feel it. That’s the moment that brings me joy. And thinking about daddy. He’s been gone since 2012 but I feel like I talk to him a lot more now. He’s just sitting knelt at the altar of God praying on my behalf that God will forgive me and bless me.”

“What do you need to be forgiven for?”

“I was the kid who was always getting in trouble and breaking the rules. If you break the rules you’re expected to apologize even if it worked. I used to feel like I had to be forgiven, that I was bad but he taught me that I was really, truly just love.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with anyone.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s so incredible when you reach people like this…human to human. We get to explore each other mutually and find out what’s familiar and what’s different and how that beauty comes to play and what we can learn from each other. What we can learn to avoid by the conversations we’ve had. Those deep conversations can be when you find out where someone made a mistake, what led up to it, and what they did to correct it. Then you think about a situation in your life that’s similar.”

“What are your favorite ways  to express love?”

“My favorite way is to look someone in the eyes when they’re talking, and listen to them intently. Really trying to hear what it is they’re trying to convey, not just their words, not just what they think they’re trying to convey, but what their heart wants to say.”

“Have you always been so open?”

“No, God has ripped my heart open on occasion. On other times it’s been a soft gentle nudge. When you see flowers in the morning, the lily pads, they start to open before the sun hits them, but when the sun kisses them they open a little more until they’re finally…completely…blooming. It’s amazing to feel so loved because for all of that to have happened, someone must have wanted me to bloom. Someone created me.”

“Maybe it was you. Maybe you’re God.”

“Nah, in physics, the atoms and the shared space, I can feel God in all the little spaces. It’s so intentional. Because of the rightness that you feel, everybody seems to feel when they feel love, I feel God is love. And God wanted love too. I hope more people learn how much fun it is to love.”

“I’m learning how fun it is to give love right now.”

“That’s cool. See! We’ve been on a journey and we come together, and who knows how long we’ll get to stay together, but sometimes you can see each other from across the parking lot, and sometimes other people are way around the corner, they’re not in your life anymore, but you haven’t forgotten them or the lessons they’ve taught you, or the impact they’ve had on you. And then there are other people in the car with you that you really wish would get out, but they’re there anyway! It’s just really cool to know people.”

“What’s one of your favorite things to do to have fun?”

“I take my mom to movie night! I love love love treating my mom in the manner that daddy had made her accustomed. He spoiled her. He was her rock. He warned me that if I didn’t treat her in the manner he made her accustomed that he would haunt me. So it’s a privilege to do that. And I get to do it with my sister. She’s a woman who loves just as much as I do. That’s one thing I do, another thing is just lay back at the beach, or a creek, and just relax in that moment. Sometimes they come and put their arms around me, and sometimes they go throw the frisbee or go fishing. Sometimes I join them but I really just love to sit back and watch. Then I can see them be…them.”

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