By Alex Paramo
Anyone old enough to remember the 1998 movie, Night at the Roxbury will surely remember how the lead characters played by Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell dance ridiculously to the Haddaway song with the title, “What is Love.” But really, what is love? Have you ever thought about it? I have.
With all due respect to everyone’s faith, paradigm, culture, public and personal beliefs (or lack thereof), I believe and teach my 7 year old daughter that God is Love. But what does that mean? A quick perusal on Merriam Websters Online Dictionary comes up with 9 definitions (not to mention all the sub-definitions). Definition number 4 is closest to my personal definition of Love, “unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.” Personally I would replace: the good of another with the good of all.
A Labor of Love
The Rail Yards Market has been a labor of love for all that have been involved in taking it from idea to reality. Fueled by our desire to bring life back to the Rail Yards, and inspired to make our community a more vibrant one, volunteers from all walks of life spend their week planning, meeting and working together to make the RYM the wonderful nexus of our city that it has become. On Sunday mornings, we gather at 6:00 am, look each other in the eye and face-down a 11 hour day together! If that is not Love, then I don’t know what is!
Native Health Initiative
The Native Health Initiative (NHI) is a love-funded, love inspired organization dedicated to addressing health inequities through “Loving Service (a human-to-human element of wanting to serve others, volunteerism).”
“Today is a day to celebrate the work in NM that is love-funded, love-inspired, and which uses love as a framework for healing our world and communities. We feel that money/grants/power, etc. lack the transformative power that love holds to address the injustices we find in our state and world. We want to inspire and encourage you today to see the beauty and power that love has to heal our world, hoping that by us celebrating love today we will begin to find new ways tomorrow and beyond to orient our work likewise!”
Love Inspired Community Groups
“A day to celebrate the work in NM that is love-funded, love-inspired, and which uses love as a framework for healing our world and communities. We want to inspire and encourage you to see the beauty and power that love has to heal our world, hoping that by celebrating love we will begin to find new ways to orient our work likewise!
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Alex Paramo
Alex Paramo is a native New Yorker of Colombian descent. He is an Author and Co-Founder of Community Publishing. He currently resides in Albuquerque, NM. Read More about him here. Community Publishing brings local artists of all mediums together in creative collaborations for distribution as Multimedia Books while promoting literacy in our communities.
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