When I was a boy we lived in the Ghettoes of Toronto, Canada. We had just immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago. My mother struggled to raise four of us on a waitress salary. There was chaos and self-destruction all around us. Many of my playmates are no longer among the living. But none of this touched us- we were living a different life. My mother was a church-lady. She was strong and resilient and strict. All of us grew up in the church. The church kept us insulated from most of the horrors of poverty.
The church still has its influence on me. I feel it and walk it everyday and I am happy for it. I learned about love in the church. Not the love you see on TV and in the movies- a bigger love, a deeper love. Thats the one sermon from our Jamaican female pastor that I remember the most. When I was 13 she spoke about love. Jesus was all about love, he was love, he is love.
Bryan Ferry from Roxy music sings Love is the drug that I need to score. I disagree, I dont believe that love is a drug- an intoxicant. That sounds more like infatuation to me. I believe that love is a medicine. The Medicine. For those of us in the sixty percent or more of the population with the...