05 June 2005

children, this week i will stand here while you teach me about love.

during 1st grade sunday school at UPC, which i’ve been helping lead for a couple of months now, after the lesson we have group discussion questions:

one that we asked this week is “what’s love – or, how do you know what love is?”

hannah, age 5, tentatively raised her hand. and suddenly i couldn’t breathe for my spirit shot up and got lodged firmly in my throat:

“when your name feels safe in someone else’s mouth – then you know you are loved.”

3 comments:

anon said...

When I lived in Miami, my ex, Matthew, once told me that Olympia "doesn't feel like home unless you're here." I always thought it such an odd sentiment--that I could define someones home from 3000 miles away. But now, in SF, where I know many and love few, I can imagine Sam and I running dawn Haight to Molotovs, or unsucessfully trying to paralell park in the Tenderloin, and I remember the way she says my name with that little upswing at the end and I miss the way it sounds--the way she nakes me feel grounded and home and terribly loved.

Sam said...

When M shared this with me on the phone the other day, I was blown away (and shamelessly tried to quote it from my own memory for my own blog). It's much more beautiful in person.

And M - I miss you too.

Thaozee said...

That qoute is similar to this qoute:

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth"
http://www.heartquotes.net/Love.html

Hannah used the interweb! :P