Why Choose Love?

We chose the name Mahala because it is indigenous to so many languages and always has the meaning of community or free or freedom. And then we chose love…

Choosing love is more difficult than it seems at first look. The act of choosing to love is something that permeates every thought, action, and breath -until it doesn’t. And then it has to be chosen again and again and again, sometimes all in the same day.

I have read a few articles lately that I will in no way be able to do justice to but will link them below. That along with my personal experience has my mind and heart turning, churning, and searching on what love means to me personally and what it means to our mission in Mahala Love.

I would say one of my deepest fears is ironically being afraid – too afraid to experience and feel life to the fullest. Maybe it’s as simple as the standard fear of missing out. But I fear sliding through life allowing myself to be dulled down with mindless chatter and untethered ideas when I know life is beautiful and meaningful and full of work to do. The article, Fragmentation, does a beautiful job of explaining this in a way that resonated deeply with me, I don’t wish to live my life in a fragmented way. I choose to love with all my heart. That is truly a scary and often painful choice. I have lived a life where I have compartmentalized that and only loved that which was safe to love. And I have stepped out to love more fully only to be driven back by the pain of loving. When I mix the choice of loving fully with my insecurities of not being enough, I can create self-fulfilling scenarios of pushing people away while loving them as hard as I know how. To love with all of your heart is wide open, exhilarating, and the greatest gift we get and what I believe we are called to do. But it also means to feel that which is painful and sit with our feelings as fully as possible and reflect and learn, knowing it is part of the same.

An article by Wendell Berry entitled, “Can Love Take Sides?” talks about the Lovers versus the Haters. The haters have the pure and easy job of simply hating. Whereas the lovers have to walk the fine line of loving the haters, accepting the haters as they are, and not trying to change the haters in order to love them. The problem becomes when the lovers began to hate the haters and then all is lost. Love and hate are so close together as they are both full and raw and powerful. And I mean powerful also in the sense that it allows us to wield power, a power for incredible good and a power for incredible hurt – with just the slightest word. This applies to politics, religion, and to simple daily relationships. We can love until we feel hurt or threatened and then we feel we must withdraw the love. And often it is a struggle to keep coming back to that place of love to evaluate the truth of a situation.

Reflecting on the mission of Mahala Love, we choose to empower people. We have four pillars of health, education, water, and food but really what we choose to do is to love the people that we know and the people that we meet and to help them be okay where they are. To stand with them to improve their health and security in life through things as simple as antibiotics, a community garden and heirloom seeds, preserving water resources, teaching new skills that they desire to learn, and supporting them unconditionally with love and caring and community.

In, “Overcoming Faith Barriers”, we read that Moses’s insecurity was a block to his faith. When called to go to the Pharoh and demand the release of his people, he answered with “Who am I?” – this is true in my relationship with God as well as my personal relationships. When I don’t feel whole and secure in myself, it is difficult to believe that others can love me, want me, and trust me to be enough as I am. It is no reflection on them, but simply on my lack of faith in myself. And it is difficult to trust that what I believe or know that God wants me to do is really within my capabilities. At times, God calls us to be ready to step forth and be bold. For some of us, that boldness is speaking to a stranger we can tell is in pain – overcoming the fear that this person is a stranger, or we won’t know what to say, or that we will be in danger. For others, the task is changing your life to better serve God and our fellows. But we are all called to Love one another. Finding the faith that we will not be asked to do more than we are equipped to handle, is often our challenge – not the kind word or gentle hug or even the bold change of life.

Great changes are coming to Mahla Love. We have received our 501(c)3 designation meaning we are now a tax-exempt charity. We expect to have a full-time Director starting in September (me) and we will be ramping up our projects in South Africa and our fundraising to support those projects. We have worked for the past 5 years here and there as we could make the time and scrape together the funds. But now is the time, we will be bold and step up and have the faith that Love is the most important thing we can give. We hope you will follow us on this journey and let us all rise to the challenge of embracing love fully together and supporting each other through the beauty and challenges that it brings.