New Site: dotLove.net

I'm cutting loose with a new site, dotLove.net. It's going to be eclectic, about love, faith, hope, the arts, media, culture, therapy, maybe health and wellbeing.
I'm not one to wait till I've got a big bang to open a web site. This one has two pieces of content so far. One a little piece of mine about George Bailey, hero of "It's a Wonderful Life", "The Richest Man in Town".
The other is from Steve Morley, a friend who does music reviews and other sundry relevant works for the modern mind. His piece is "Unearthing the Rock of Ages: An Unofficial History of the Jesus-Rock Era". This is a kind of historical op-ed writing and if you know anything about contemporary Christian music you will be interested in what Steve has to say.
As always I aim for Love to be uppermost in the scheme of this new site, as I aim to be in general about everything that touches me or that I touch. Of course I don't always succeed—if you want to audit the thing and maybe add to the love-fray you are welcome.

Love the One You're With - Revisited

I was clueless in the seventies. I thought all that love stuff in pop culture was really about love. After all Joni Mitchell was on the radio singing, "Come on people now smile on our brother..." That was about real love. So why not Crosby, Stills and their crew? Remember their harmonious voices singing:

If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with.

To me it was a little parable. It meant when you find yourself far away from the little neighborhood where you felt safe and comfortable, where you quite naturally love and feel loved, then you should look right in front of you and see that whoever is there is your neighbor and value them as such. It was a tonic for Dylan's depressing taunt: "How does it feel? To be all alone ... with no direction home." CSNY were to me a breath of fresh air. They reminded me I could carry my "heart's home" with me anywhere.
Does that make sense? Can you see how a bright-eyed youth could read that meaning into a lyric from a popular tune.
For me, at that point in my life I was uprooted. I went away to college and found a strange culture there. At home we were in a different place as well—in a new town with a new school and a new church. I had lived there only about five months before graduating high school. In my heart were memories of people and places that I couldn't get back to.
So, to me, the song expressed a wonderful truth. It was telling me to see the new people as neighbors and friends and start building relationships again. I think it helped me not to want to pine for the beloved past while avoiding the reality of present company. It was like a little reminder every time I heard it. And I got comfort from it because I knew it was right.
Then years later my friends told me the song was about free sex.
I'm glad I didn't know that then.