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Carol Lynn Pearson July 2008
Newsletter "FACING EAST" OPENS THIS WEEKEND IN LOS ANGELES! Preview Friday, July 11; opening Saturday, July 12. I’ll be attending the performance on the 12th. See http://www.stillspeakingtheatre.org/tickets.html************* FREE COPY OF "NO MORE GOODBYES" to first eight people who order $20 in books from http://www.clpearson.com/personal_gifts.htm. If you want more magic in your life, read Embracing Coincidence. In love? Read him/her some love poems from In Love Again and Always. Need a little comfort or insight? Take a journey through Beginnings and Beyond. And if you feel there’s something askew with the human family living in a Motherless house, you’ll want to see the DVD of Mother Wove the Morning, sixteen women throughout history in search of God the Mother. Go to http://www.clpearson.com/personal_gifts.htm.************* STORY: THE RING OF LOVE. Most of the readers of this newsletter will be aware that there is a fair amount of controversy around the recent California court decision authorizing gay marriage, and in particular around the entry of the LDS Church into the arena with a strong effort to pass a proposed amendment to the state constitution forbidding such marriages. A day or two after the letter from church leaders first hit the Internet, I had a long telephone conversation with a friend of mine. We were not on the same page as we discussed these issues, but at the end of our conversation we both said some important things. I said, "You know, I’ve committed to look at this and everything else and ask, ‘Will this thing bring a little more love to the planet, or take a little love away from the planet?’" My friend replied, "You have a very good point there. And we need also to remember that when this life is done and we meet Christ, we will hopefully be able to say to him, ‘I saw you hungry and I fed you...I saw you naked and I clothed you...I saw you in prison and I visited you...’" I added, "‘And I saw you as a young gay man about to take your own life and I put my arms around you...’" "Yes, yes," my friend said. "It all comes down to love, doesn’t it?" Feeling very good as we ended our conversation, I got in the car and drove to Safeway for some groceries. In my mind I was going over what we had said: "Yes, it all comes down to love...will it bring a little more love to the planet or will it take a little love away?...it all comes down to love." As I parked at the store and got out of the car, my eye spotted something small and round on the ground. I bent down and picked up — a little copper ring. Even without my reading glasses I could tell there was a word etched into the ring. "L-O-V-E." This did not really surprise me. I know by now that if you think about love, if you talk about love — you find love. The ring was slightly bent, but love often gets bent out of shape a bit.I knew I would never be able to locate the person who lost the ring, so I put it on the ring finger of my left hand. And — it fit! — just like Cinderella’s glass slipper. I thought — "Wow, I’m engaged! I’m engaged in the work of love with someone that I’ve never met, someone who cared to wear the word ‘love’ on his or her finger."I’ve been wearing that ring since. And I love the fact that I will never know who this person is — man, woman, child, black, white, Californian, Asian, Methodist, Mormon, Jew, a straight person or a gay person. All I know is that this person is the angel we might be entertaining unaware that we read about in scripture. This person is the Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief that we sing about. This person is the one in whose face we must see the face of Christ.I’m not going to take the ring off until after the November election. And every time I look at it, I will remember that when I found it I was thinking of our gay brothers and sisters, and I will hope and believe that more and more of us — whatever our politics — will cease looking at them with fear and judgment, will want to give them a little more love rather than take a little love away from them, will include them in our universal ring of love, will practice seeing in their faces the face of Christ.******* TELEPHONE CONSULTATIONS: http://clpearson.com/consultations.htm.PRIVATE RETREATS: http://www.clpearson.com/CLPRetreatFLYER.pdf.********* UPCOMING PERFORMANCES OF "FACING EAST" (LDS couple deals with suicide of gay son): LOS ANGELES: July 11-August 3 CaliforniaStillspeaking Theatre http://www.stillspeakingtheatre.org/tickets.htmlSAN DIEGO: March-April 2009 Diversionary Theatre www.diversionary.orgDO YOU WANT TO SEE "FACING EAST" IN YOUR AREA? Ask me for a complimentary script to give to a producing company you know. ******** "Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection." –Martin Luther King Jr.
Love from Carol Lynn
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