Love Rocks

Last night my cousin was in town from the west coast. She plays guitar. Very loudly. If I knew anything about guitars (other than I like when someone plays one around a campfire), I would have taken 100 pictures of her last night and written this post about riffs and licks. She is a very famous guitarist and has toured with famous people. But I digress.

After reminding my family how world-famous she is, we pulled up to see a small gathering of guitar enthusiasts gathered around my cousin in a beat-up storefront. As we opened the door, the music was deafening and, how shall I say?, not our type. I couldn't look at my husband or kids because we all got a bad case of the giggles. I couldn't look at my sister or her daughter or my brother-in-law. Because they had a case of the giggles. And I really couldn't look at my 70-something Dad, because he had a case of the belly laughs whenever we made eye contact. Let's just say this wasn't my family's element. (My husband called himself "the grinning idiot" because he was in such foreign territory.)

After a few hours, the alien media show and the music accompanying it was over and we got to visit with a cousin we've only met a half dozen times. I gave her a present of homemade brownies and two of my favorite books ("Traveling Mercies" and "The Shack"). I copied an old picture of my mom (her favorite aunt) as a child and wrote "she loved you deeply" on the back. We laughed a lot and enjoyed ourselves as she packed up her gear and showed us her RV. We bought cds and dvds of the loud music. We bought interesting t-shirts. The famous cousin was touched saying my Dad was her best customer.

I was so glad we had all made the effort to go rock out with a cousin we don't really know who plays music we don't really understand. After all, we're family.

They'll know we are Christians by our love.

And love doesn't just sit in the comforts of home listening to the same old music. Love walks. Love laughs. Love embraces. Love does. Love rocks.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

(1 Cor. 13:13)