ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Maxine's Serenity Prayer

"All You Need Is Love" is a song written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney. It was first performed by The Beatles on Our World, the first live global television link. Watched by 400 million in 26 countries, the programme was broadcast via satellite on 25 June 1967. The BBC had commissioned the Beatles to write a song for the United Kingdom's contribution. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at #362 in their 500 greatest songs of all time.—Wikipedia

There’s an old saying that goes something like “If you want to make God smile, show him your plans”. There’s a lot of tragedy in the world for sure, and there’s an equal amount of goodness—much of it in response to the tragedies. Another saying in the South which is probably best perpetuated by those in the North, is the most quotable last words of a southern redneck, “Hey Earl, hold my beer and watch this”! Most of us are well aware of the dire predictions in the book of Revelation that the world will eventually be destroyed in order to finally restore its brokenness. And every generation reads world events as signs that this is the time. And then another generation moves up to replace them.

I’ve often wondered just how much human inhumanity God can take before he’s had enough and pulls the trigger. I can only imagine that perhaps there’s still enough humanitarian goodness played out each day to buy the race one more day to try to get it right. And if you’ve ever channel surfed any of the wide variety of low budget reality television shows like “America’s Funniest Home Videos”, “Cops”, “World’s Dumbest Criminals”,“The Kardashians”, anything on MTV, etc., you have a micro view of just a fraction of the human foibles that God witnesses 24/7. A lot of this stuff has to be mildly entertaining while understandably not exactly raising the bar for human development and evolution to our rightful place at the top of the food chain. Since we were created in God’s image, it’s possible that God may share the humor that we sometimes experience when we come across the endless variety of ironic circumstances that we human beings encounter, like the one that was innocently recorded in the bottom section of Monday’s August 23, 2010 edition of USA Today from where else but California:

“LOS ANGELES—More than 80 people were arrested late Saturday and early Sunday at the Love Festival rave party at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, according to police. The fire department said 16 people were treated for minor injuries and three were taken to hospitals.”

Part of the lyrics from the Beatles’ hit song for the world include, “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy. All you need is love…Love is all you need”. Do you really suppose those 80 people who were injured at the Love Festival were meant to be there? Apparently 19 of them needed medical attention to go with their love. What on earth must God be thinking of us? The good news is that the sun came up again this morning, so there must have been at least 19 acts of random kindness committed somewhere around the great blue marble to balance the equation for one more day.