Corking the Bottle

I remember these sappy comics running in my local paper as I was growing up. To an adolescent boy, anyway, they were sappy. My parents loved me, and I loved them. But Love with a capital L with a girl with a capital G? That seemed far away. As I am learning as an adult, that wasn't really love at all. Foreigner: "In my life there's been heartache and pain I don't know if I can face it again Can't stop now, I've traveled so far, to change this lonely life "I want to know what love is I want you to show me I want to feel what love is I know you can show me...." http://www.songlyrics.com/foreigner-feat-nate-ruess/i-want-to-know-what-love-is-lyrics/ Alcoholism. "What's love got to do with it?" Tina Turner sang. Plenty. You can't give what you don't have. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled , claims, "Love is not a feeling...Love is an action, an activity." ( http://www.mscottpeck.com/ ) Dr. Peck goes on ...

I used to work with kids from financially deprived families. Some had parents lost in drugs and alcohol. Some had no idea what love was but knew something was missing in their homes. Some suffered abuse. All were growing up among classmates who lived lives that appeared better, more successful -- and unattainable. I tried to show them there were choices in life. That was tough. One girl in middle school told me the power to her house was turned off every month because her parents hadn't paid the bill. She and her younger brothers had to get ready for school in the dark, unaware of what clothes they had put on or how unkempt their hair was. Sometimes those same kids prepared for school without running water. How can one make a difference in lives like these? I tell you this because I don't really know if taking these kids to restaurants, sporting events, or even to my house, which at that time was home to a functioning model family, ever taught them there was a different way...