We’re sometimes asked where The Only Love Project came from. The answer is right under everyone’s nose: Facebook.
The Project was born a little over a year ago because of two things:
1. Contemplating a simple phrase from the Dhammapada: “Only love dispels hate,” wondering what it means, how it works, etc., and
2. Watching the anger, divisiveness, bitterness, and sadness on Facebook — about every subject, 24/7.
It doesn’t matter what issue it is, someone inevitably appears with a different point of view. And that’s okay. Differences make life interesting. Imagine everyone eating the same food, reading the same books, watching the same movies, mowing their lawns on the same day, in the same way. That’s not society; that’s the plot of The Stepford Wives.
Sadly, thanks in large part to the Internet, everyone has become firmly entrenched in points of view. So much so that their identity has become their direction.
Their identity has become their direction.
In other words, they and their cause have merged, sort of like Brundlefly in the horror movie The Fly. When scientist Seth Brundle accidentally merged his DNA with a common housefly, the two became one — with disastrous results.
Same thing is happening today — only on a global scale. Instead of Brundlefly, now we have…
Conservativefly
Liberalfly
Gayfly
Antigayfly
Seniorcitizenfly
Conspiracytheoriestfly
Communistfly
Constitutionalistfly
Malefly
Femalefly
Blackfly
Whitefly
Greenfly
Capitalistfly
Socialistfly
Creationistfly
Evolutionistfly
Chinafly
Americafly
Meatfly
Veganfly
Christianfly
Buddhistfly
Muslimfly
Hindufly
Atheistfly
This list goes on and on and on.
The problem with all of these Brundlefly-like creatures is they cannot talk to one another without contention, anger, jockeying for power, suspicion…and hatred.
“Only love dispels hate.” What does that mean?
A close look at the lives of Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, Buddha, and others who changed people’s lives on a grand scale revealed a common denominator: Love.
Love.
Remember the Grinch in the classic Dr. Seuss story?
“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
Love. “Only love dispels hate.” We puzzled and puzzled until our puzzler was sore.
And we, like the Grinch, realized something: love dispels hate because it trumps causes, politics, and prejudices. It is a universal language, perhaps the universal language. It is not an aside to life: it is life.
So, The Only Love Project is our attempt to apply love, to insert it between two opposing sides, to de-splice Brundlefly, separate him back into Brundle and fly so that life can begin again for the hapless scientist.
And the rest of us.