The Caring Universe
Rev. David Takahashi Morris
December 3, 2006
A Story About Love
When we’re
traveling, we like to visit science and discovery museums. There’s one we visited this summer in
I was sitting on a bench in a huge room that was two floors high and full of tubes you could crawl through. I found a quiet corner for a little rest, while Liam was climbing all over. A little way away from me I noticed a little boy about five years old, who I’d seen having a disagreement with his parents a little while earlier. They wanted to go into one of the exhibits, but he thought it was a little scary. To get into it you went into a door and around a corner and you couldn’t see where you were going, and he just wouldn’t go in. His parents were confused and frustrated.
When I noticed the boy in the climbing room he was crying. His mother was getting things in a backpack, getting ready to go. You could tell she was mad. The boy kept saying that he wasn’t ready to leave. After a while his mother said, “If you don’t want to go in the exhibits there’s no reason to stay.”
I felt bad hearing their private family conversation, and I felt bad that they were having such a hard time together right then. I was afraid if I got up and walked away the mother would be embarrassed that I had noticed them, so I just tried not to listen. But I couldn’t help hearing what happened next.
The little boy took a great big breath and he said really clearly, “Mommy, I’m feeling very sad!” And his mommy stopped putting things into her backpack and looked right at him and said one of those terrible things we sometimes say when we’re angry. She said, “I don’t care how sad you are. Now let’s go.” And they went.
I don’t suppose I know exactly how that little boy felt, but I think I can guess at least a little. And I can guess even better about how his mother felt. I know what it’s like to hear your mom or dad say something really mean to you when you’re already feeling bad and needing someone to help you. It’s happened to me. But I don’t want you to think I believe that little boy’s mother wasn’t a good mom or that she didn’t love her little boy. I know how it feels to be so angry that you say something really hurtful on purpose to someone you really love, something you wish had never ever come out of your mouth. I’ve done that too. So after they left I was feeling very sad, thinking about that.
I thought about it a lot. When we hear terrible things from people we love, part of what hurts is that we feel afraid they might not love us any more. We need to know that these important people love us no matter how angry or disappointed or frustrated they are right now. When we say terrible things to people we love, part of what hurts is that we know even while it’s happening that this isn’t what we really mean or want to say to them. We know that this person we’ve just hurt really loves us, and we love them, and that just for that one terrible moment we forgot how important that is. We know we can’t take it back or make it like it never happened.
Now I didn’t see that family again that day, and I’m telling this story. So right now the story can end any way I want it to. So here’s what I hope happened: After they left the museum, the parents and their little boy walked toward the subway train station and once they were out of the noisy museum and looking out at the big harbor, they went slower and slower and their hearts got quieter and quieter. Finally they stopped, and the parents started to cry too. They looked at their sad little boy and they said, “I’m sorry you’re feeling so sad, and I’m sorry that I said mean things to you. I love you very very much, and even though I was really upset with you that doesn’t make it OK for me to act that way. I should have tried harder to understand what you were feeling, and I shouldn’t have hurt your feelings just because I was disappointed.”
Then they tried to find a way to give him back his happy day with his parents. Maybe they went for ice cream. And they didn’t live happily ever after. But they learned, and they tried really hard to get better at helping their little boy with his feelings, and to get better at expressing their own feelings. And the next time they did a little better, and a little better the time after that, and they kept working on it, because they really loved their child, and they wanted to make sure he would always, always know that. And he always knew from then on that he was loved.
We need to know that we are loved. And we need to remember that we love each other. And that’s my story about love.