At a national conference that I’m attending, we enter the general reception area by walking across a “bridge” that was created by putting up some pieces of chain link fence and creating a pathway that simulates that bridge. As you reached the bridge, you were greeted by a staff member who explained it was the “love lock” bridge and who handed you a small net bag with a heart shaped lock within. As with “love lock” bridges around the world, we each fastened our hearts on the fence and locked them.

Each of us, I know, had a different thought when we affixed our locks. What were we promising? What did it mean? For some, it was the commitment to learning and connecting at the conference sessions. For others, it was reaffirming their dedication to the work that we do with older adults.

For me, today, it felt symbolic on a lot of levels. I wasn’t so much thinking about the conference I’d come here to attend or the ideas and information I hoped to gather to improve the lives of the elders we serve. Rather, I was thinking about love on a broader scale. I was thinking about how casually we throw that word around and how many ways we use it. I loved a movie or a book or I love your dress or I just love the way you make me laugh—you can add to the list I am sure.

But if we bring it back to the core, if we lock the lock to truly be a symbol of caring, of depth, of meaning, how can we apply that to our lives and to our world?

We are living at a time in which anger and hatred erupt into violence without warning. On a global scale, on a national scale, in a parking lot, in a schoolyard, it happens in an instant and changes lives forever. We use the word hate in the same casual way as love, throwing it around in any and all contexts, making it acceptable when it cannot be acceptable.

Every life has value and meaning, Every individual is unique and worthy of respect. We cannot take that for granted anymore than we can take those words, love and hate, as trivial. What will it take for us to remember that? Can we find a way to cut through the insanity to know what matters? I don’t know but I do know that only love has room in my full heart.