This week’s Wednesday Wisdom comes from Coach John Wooden and his philosophy of responding with love to everybody and every situation.

R.W.L. – Respond With Love

Coach would ask each of us to make a list of all the people and situations we are angry or upset about…and determine how to RWL to all of them.

Love Your Neighbor

 He is anywhere and everywhere
At the road corner with a sign
Underneath the sun or out in the cold of winter
He is the outcast, the forgotten

It is Christmas but he won’t have one
It is Memorial Day, but he is out in the cold
It is July 4th, he is under the bridge away from the sun
It is his life, painful but yet not hopeless

He gathers with peers and celebrates life
In union they enjoy the company of one another
They share a sense of hope by looking at each other’s life
Life indeed is not out of sight

He is in search of a new life not suicide
A past to be forgotten and a future to embrace
A sense of belonging and not being alienated
He has answers, he understands his needs

Open up your heart when you see him
For when the sun rises out of the east
On this earth will you stand and see the beauty of this life
People you encounter are the joys of life
For without them you’d be alone on this earth

Embrace therefore your neighbor
Bear no grudge against them
For we walk on this earth but once
And together we will share in the joy of living

David Beckham

In closing, I’d ask each of us to remember the very best definition of love:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.