
This story is about the sweetness, bigness, and the most miraculous exponentially unfolding incredibly powerful living organism and force on the planet … love.
Oh love, I love you. And I love this photograph of my Grandma Ruth Heine, front and center, with apron as neat as a pin, darling shoes, simple prairie flower print dress surrounded by the love of family.
Ruth was one of 13 children, a twin with handsome Uncle Bud. Such a precious brother and sister knitted together in their mama’s womb. Sister Nellie tragically died in a fire. All the other siblings lived full lives. A million stories about those lives have unfolded upon the world, but this particular story is about love.
Humans want to love so much. They want to give love, receive love, and be surrounded by love. Think of one person who made you feel so very loved, for even a moment. I mean fully present and connected with you love. Love. Big love. Not so much fleeting romantic love. No, a love that supersedes romance. A love that sees … you.
Grandma Ruth loved traversing the plains loving people. She loved them as a natural educator. She loved their minds and their potential. She went to college, born in 1907, a woman to boot she was breaking glass ceilings with the laces of those high-heeled little black boots too.
She broke many barriers with that great love that she had. She loved what the Creator had given her to do. God had woven within her biome the capacity to carry out the science and mysterious miracles of love.
I love this picture because it’s a statement. It’s Grandma looking straight at me from the center of a family I know about but never hugged. I know about them because grandma told me stories.
In the photograph, they are all gathered together for some sort of event, maybe as momentously simple as Sunday dinner. Underneath her apron is a lovely dress. But grandma is ready for it all in this picture. Ready to help prepare a meal, maybe butcher a chicken, and ready to set out the best China dinnerware. Most importantly, she’s ready to converse, be present, and enjoy the moments of … love.
Awe sweet love. The world needs you so much. The crying earth is sad, mad, and divided in two. But like a sobbing teenager in her dramatic mess, she is also whole. She just has healing to do.
A generation or two was jammed into corners, behind latches, labels, held within cubicles, and trapped in tractor cabs. We are huddling there and gradually waking up to the mess “out there.” The messy, mess because we stopped coming together to love.
That’s why, in a world ready to blast their anger and hurt all over the place, I am ready to put bouquets in their canons and constructive conversation up against their crabbiness. It’s so simple to me, but seemingly so hard to relay to the masses. I love you world! That’s it. I love you!
An agriculturalist friend of mine in the soil health space relayed it so exquisitely and it reminded me of Grandma Ruth so much, he said he is maybe a “life-aholic.” Oh Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, I love your addiction to life, love, and fruitfulness. Everyone, if you have not, follow Reginaldo’s incredible immigrant story at www.facebook.com/regenagalliance. Celebrate what he is doing with the freedom to dream and do.
Because here’s the deal, people like Reginaldo, are people my “life-aholic” grandmother would have absolutely loved. She would have had us meet him. She would have learned all about him, his family, his passion for farming and poultry. Mostly, she would have loved him.
Love. That’s it. It’s not hard. If you see a creature with breath, blinking eyes, and a heart, love them for goodness sakes. Love them so much the world doesn’t understand.
Let’s love that way. Let’s love bombs and guns away from hands, hardened hearts, and mad minds until they cease forever in warfare. Let’s love children so much that they don’t grow up feeling like there is no place for them. Let’s love so well that all bellies are full and the soil springs to life again for all human beings and creatures great and small.
This story is about the greatest love on earth. The love we were divinely created to give or receive. May we give that love in wisdom, hope, and with the most genuine intent we possibly can as human beings. Let’s love the world to life again.
Yes, there she is in the picture. My precious Grandma Ruth surrounded by the love of family. My Grandmother Ruth, born in 1907, who attended college, not long after when women were just getting the right to vote. The woman who believed in women, men, the disabled, and all those seemingly left behind. The woman who would believe in you too.
She taught me something and so many others too. She taught me to find something beautiful to love in every soul I meet. She taught me every soul has the capacity to learn more and grow. She taught me, hope. Hope in others and in life.
In the midst of mayhem, strife, despair, and pain, cling to that forever perfect divine love. Cling to that perfect love that designed you to love one another. It’s the only thing, love, that can heal and give hope to us all.
Thank you Grandma. Thank you God.
For … LOVE. Love, in, action.
LOVE!
Copyright© 2025 All Rights Reserved, Kerry Hoffschneider
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