Andrew Solomon, who I talked about earlier this week, said the following in his response to people's criticism of his unconventional family (note: he is a gay man who has fathered children for a lesbian couple and one of those women was the surrogate for the son he and his partner have):
And there are people who think that the existence of my family somehow undermines or weakens or damages their family. And there are people who think that families like mine shouldn't be allowed to exist. And I don't accept subtractive models of love, only additive ones. And I believe that in the same way that we need species diversity to ensure that the planet can go on, so we need this diversity of affection and diversity of family in order to strengthen the ecosphere of kindness.
Similarly, Elizabeth Lessor quotes Mother Theresa in a chapter of Broken Open when she says, "The problem with the world is we draw the circle of our family too small."
And so it is. It really always is. We have a choice between love and fear. Fear manifests itself in anger, hostility, sadness, resentment, rage, but it is all but one feeling. Love, on the other hand, is acceptance, peace, light....
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