Love & Power

Power and love are strange partners. I think we lose love when we seek power, but when we love, we become inadvertently powerful.

I saw this quote from Madonna earlier today: "Power is being told you are not loved and not letting it destroy you." I had to think about it for a minute. It's true in a sense, but ugh. So typical of the narcissistic world in which I sometimes feel we have to live. Personally, I'm not sure I have time to care if someone tells me they don't love me. I'm trying to be too busy loving others.

And with that thought it occurred to me what a paradox love & power are. If you seek power, I think you frighten love away. If you seek love, power, if you want it, will often come along. And I think, the more you eschew the power as it's offered, the more influential you become.

If I were to tell you what to do...

I really shouldn’t. I don’t know how. I’m not very good at this life thing myself, so I certainly shouldn’t be telling you what to do. And other people have told you so much more beautifully than I could.

But if I were to tell you what to do, I might suggest reading and listening to some of those who said it far more beautifully than I. Read the Gospel of Matthew. Read e.e. cummings. Read Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions by Richard Bach, and The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey and read some Gandhi and some Martin Luther King.

Listen to Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Mahler 3 or 9 and Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Listen to the end of Der Rosenkavalier. Listen to Frank Ticheli’s “There Will Be Rest” and Franz Biebl’s “Ave Maria”. Listen to Bernstein’s “Somewhere” and Schwartz’s “All Good Gifts” and “For Good.” And Jonatha Brooke’s “Because I Told You So.” And switch it up and listen to Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain” or Queen’s “Fat Bottom Girls” or any other song that makes you smile for reasons that are your very own!

And look at the sunshine. And the clean intense blue of the sky and the colors of flowers and trees. And the crystalline pure silence of white snow. And feel the power of a coming storm or the ocean’s waves.

And read a book about, or just look at pictures of the stars. And realize that, in this incredibly vast universe, you have a place, and it’s pretty closely connected to my place. That somehow, across this super-giant giant-ness, we have stumbled across each other.

And hopefully, in all that, you’ll find that you’re very, very capable of feeling.

And when you know you are capable of feeling, stop for a moment realize that we are kindred spirits on a journey of sorts, together in a way. And knowing that, know in turn that, wherever you are in this incredibly vast universe, you never have to be alone.

Because I Told You So

If I gave you the sky
If I laid down my life
Would you believe me then?
If I promised to change
If I carried the blame
Would you believe me then?
Could you see it like me
And believe what I see
Could you listen, and remember that I love you
Only,
Because I told you, because I told you so.
If you told me you lied
But I stayed true and tried
Would you believe me then?
And if your beauty was gone
But my love lingered on
Would you believe me then?
Could you see it like me
And believe what I see
Could you listen and remember that I love you
Only,
Because I told you, because I told you so.
You take the wheel for now
I'm too tired to drive this one home anyhow,
For now
And when you mention my name
Let this one thing remain,
My love,
Believe me now.
-- the incomparable Jonatha Brooke