Meaghan Fanning's Post

The poet Hafiz writes, “Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’  Look what happens with a love like that—it lights up the whole sky.”  We hear the phrase “unconditional love” on a regular basis.  How often do we pause to ask what this really means?  To love without conditions, without limits.  How could we ever do this?  I take comfort in the fact that knowing and truly believing that we are made in the likeness of God and that means that we are created to love.  It is God’s joy to love us, and it should be our joy to love one another.  I find God in the pleasantries and drudgeries of everyday life – the life that sometimes feels like paradise and sometimes feels like we are walking against a hard, freezing wind.  But within that life, every day, is the opportunity to show people around us how much we love them. Anne Lamott shares her reflections on simple love and friendship: “All you can do is show up for someone.  But when you do, it can radically change everything.  Your there-ness can be life giving.  So you come to keep them company, even when it feels like the whole world is falling apart, and your being there says for just this moment, this one tiny piece of the world is okay.”  To love is to show others God, to allow them to feel beloved on this earth. 

Meaghan Fanning is a senior Hawk and loving the last month of Rockhurst! She is majoring in Nonprofit Leadership Studies and Theology and Religious Studies and minoring in Philosophy.  She was deeply formed by her years spent on the Executive Board of VOICES for JUSTICE and leading her beloved CLC.  Meaghan is continuing on to get her Masters in Social Work next year.