My Nonprofit Reviews

The Love Foundation is a coalition of people who believe that, with love, we can go into the recesses of our shared history. We can with awareness, bring healing. It’s not all foo-foo New Agey goobledygook. It’s the very real idea that Love is stronger than being damned; and the courage to say so out loud, the courage to live that truth, can change the world.

I visited Texas in May 2013 for a few days with my grandparents and quickly realized that during my visit I would be: “Damn it, Beth!” That was my name for four days. I suddenly grasped a glimpse of what my mom’s childhood and life must have been like. She grew up as: “Damn it, Beth!” I think she kind of just learned to live with the curse of being so often damned. It was so much a part of her story, it wasn’t even separated from herself. It gave her edges. She was an incredibly loving woman, with very defined edges.
We met John and Harold of the Love Foundation in 2011. They interviewed five real estate agents, then chose her. Over the next few years their relationship developed into something more like best friend/sibling connection. I think they respected her witty, fiery spunk, and warmness. She was drawn to the lack of damnation in them. They live in love, in awareness, and with healing purpose. Her respect for them allowed them to ask questions, and venture into so many areas of her heart and life that no one was allowed to ask about, not even me.
Her mother fell in Feb 2014 and she found herself in the peculiar position of caregiver and decision maker. How do you act lovingly towards someone you feel never really loved you? How do you let go and forgive being damned your whole life? I think sometimes you need someone to lovingly and boldly question your assumptions, to walk into the recesses of your personal history and help you haul things out too heavy to lift on your own. Through our experiences with The Love Foundation, and through one very real, very intense, and very catalytic encounter with raw loving honesty, I watched my mom let go of being damned. It is, to date, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I’ve witnessed an inner transformation. That is what The Love Foundation does- teaches us that strength is the ability to give ourselves what we need to heal and community can help us do it.