Oliver Twist in the musical Oliver laments and prays about the whereabouts of love while he's locked in the basement of a funeral parlor where he's an indentured servant.

This scene is no allegory.

There are no hidden meanings here.

He's trapped in a dark world where the light of love refuses to shine for him.

I want to ask the same question, where is love?

A lot of us think we know what it means.

We believe we have it, want it, can express it, know when it's being shown towards us.

But knowing the definition doesn't mean we can actually do it.

I know the definition of a pole-vaulter, but if I attempted an even modest leap, my lack of understanding of its meaning would result in a spectacular YouTube-worthy fail.

I have no experience or success at pole-vaulting.

Love is an ideal that many attempt, but few will be able to stick the landing.

However, you can find a few gold medal winners Mother Teresa, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Lao Tzu…

Strong voices of love are not only in the past.

You can find among all of us strong hearts who can lead a workout class in love.

Love is the hardest emotion to understand with the intellect; it defies logic because it's the language of the soul, the song of the heart.

We're all tone-deaf; it appears in this world to love its melody its lyric.

Like Oliver, we're all locked in a dark world that mistreats us, batters our souls, misshapes our perceptions, ignites anger, walls in hate, whispers lies telling us we're misunderstood, alone, unwanted.

We cannot tell the difference between noise of fear the soft whisper of love.

Be the answer to Oliver's prayer.

Act with love.

Do it today.

Please do it for yourself first.

If you can't forgive yourself, you can't forgive others.

To love the world begins by loving yourself.

Peace.

DFrey