Island Provisions
We recently travelled to Charleston, South Carolina, to explore a new part of the country and maybe find a bit warmer winter weather. While we were exploring the city, we found a small coffee shop/smoothie bar tucked in the artsy side of downtown. We ended up going here almost everyday of our trip. The coffee was wonderful and the smoothies were equally as so, but it was the PEOPLE around us that made us keep coming back.
Coffee shops are a typical destination of most people under the age of thirty, whether it is for school, or to catch up with a friend, or to meet someone new. As we sat down one day at a table covered in sun, we were able to listen to two young ladies talking about LOVE. These two had to be around their mid-twenties, and one, in particular, was talking about the current dating market. "No one is genuine." "No one is real." "I thought he was going to be like this." "I had hopes it would go okay." She admonished for a while about the difficulties of finding LOVE nowadays. Now, I have heard this from all of my friends who are still finding LOVE, that the world out there seems particularly more difficult than ever before. And, I think they're right. I think this girl is poking at something that all of us feel to be true but get sad thinking about: that LOVE is hard, and it is even harder to find.
Another time, we sat down to overhear a dad and his daughter chatting before the daughter went back to school. She talked about her dreams of being an attorney, but the difficulties of finding what she wants to specifically do. Really, she was talking about LOVE; LOVE of service, LOVE of work, LOVE of a career that is meaningful. "I don't really know if it is a good fit." "That is a good option, but." "Maybe I'll like this instead." "Well after I take the bar, then I might know." She brought to the surface the very thoughts that occupy my mind as well. Where is the right fit? Where is LOVE in the mix of all of these thoughts? And I think she was right to ask, because a LOVE of one's work is hard to find.
What I LOVE about PEOPLE is that we can learn from each other. We are given such a unique human skill to pick up on patterns, find a fit for us, and take our next step forward even without speaking to them. And this coffee shop, on this trip, on these days, with these PEOPLE, I was able to learn that LOVE is a hard process. Often we are asking more questions than we have answers. But I also learned that LOVE reveals itself when PEOPLE begin to ask those very questions. "I had hopes that it would go okay," but it didn’t. What was off this time? "That is a good option, but" something is missing. What is missing?
When PEOPLE ask these questions about LOVE, we slowly build into the process of discovering just what LOVE might be. Because deep underneath the questions is the universal human desire to know LOVE, to be in LOVE, and work out of LOVE. Why would we ask in the first place, if we didn't want to find it?! PEOPLE … it is PEOPLE who help poke and prod at LOVE until we find it, even when it is hard.
What questions have PEOPLE been asking around you that may be leading you to find LOVE?
