Gen Bytes - Yes You Deserve Their Love! "Somewhere in My Youth"

We have all looked back on our Youth,

And collected, in a bag of unfortunate Memories,

That seem to get Dustier and more Soiled

As time passes. What seems to stay with us

Is a feeling of "not good enough" or a lack of Virtue.

We leave ourselves with a kind of "failed" memory

That maybe - in our youth - We did something "good"

That explains the Wonderful Affection that we are experiencing.

And still we hope, like Maria does in "The Sound of Music"

That the wicked Memories won't matter and we can enjoy

What splendor a moment of truth can provide.

For when a moment comes, a real present and living love

Somehow hunts up our past, and finds a goodness

That will explain the phenomenal blessing ---

Of being loved in an earth shaking "present moment" --

"For here you are, standing there, loving me

Whether or not you should ---

So somewhere in my youth or childhood

I must have done something good".

And the simple, but miraculous explanation is the refrain:

"Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could.

So somewhere in my youth or childhood

I must have done something good."

Ultimately we all answer this unanswerable

By focusing on the idea of DESERVING.

And the mind stirs in the good and bad complexities.

But the true Wonder of Life is that there are these

Heart Exalting times when your "undiscoverable" goodness

Does not have to be an "explanation" or qualification

For the Gift of Love.

In the modern era, you could start with the classic -- Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which Leonard Bernstein updated with West Side Story, a creation laced with Jazzy rhythms and tunes focusing on romance between a white boy and a Puerto Rican girl (played by Natalie Wood in the 50's).

But wait, romance and love have always been with us, and not just the "night time stuff". Although it was loosely based on the real history of the Von Trapp family, it covered pre-war Austria, the Nazis and fleeing to safety. The Sound of Music was a hit on Broadway and the movies and Julie Andrews was immortalized on the American screen. And thank you, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

And of Jacob/Israel who with wives and concubines built a brood of contentious and jealous brothers who kidnapped Joseph and sold him into slavery. That "Ancient Soap Box" story involved an absolutely smashing Rachel who couldn't get pregnant, but Jacob really loved. And the sister, always fertile Leah, who had no problem bearing children, but was not as appealing, (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulon) but eventually "tired" of mothering and let the concubines (Zilpah and Bilhah) bear Gad, Asher, Dan and Naphtali.

Finally Rachel bears Joseph. Joseph grows up has self-glorifying dream and gets a really snappy coat from his father. Then history really starts. Vanity, jealousy, lust and greed begin. The boys jump Joseph and sell him to human traders. Rachel, beautiful and overwhelmed with sadness over the "madness" of the brothers actions had bore and "apparently lost" Joseph; bore Benjamin, the youngest and of course was the full brother of Joseph which really complicated the big Joseph drama when, as Joseph (Pharaoh) asked the other brothers "where would that youngest brother be? My people tell me he's not in Egypt!" Jacob and Joseph, Tony La Bionco and Colleen Dewhurst.

Speaking of Egypt, you can't leave out Charlton Heston, as Moses in his romantic turn in the wilderness with his wife to be, Yvonne DeCarlo, as he begins his 40 years in the desert in The 10 Commandments.

Romance has continued to play deep and powerful roles in history. Without a prostitute named Rahab. Boy, did she influence History. There is Rahab, the heroic savior of Salmon on the walls of Jericho. After Jericho falls and the spy team comes in via Rahab's help, they get married and add to the story of Ruth and Boaz, and, lo and behold, the family of Jesse and a teenager named David who defeated Goliath and became King. Not only movies and books cover this particular story, but so do religious songs: "Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho". But so did Rahab. An actress Stephanie Leonidas starred as Rahab in The Bible Series, produced by Roma Downey.

Gregory Peck and Rita Hayward played in the story of David and Bathsheba, and Yul Brynner in the tale of Solomon and Sheba, with Gina Lollobrigida. But a memorable Romantic hit with a very young Angela Lansbury, playing opposite Victor Mature was in Samson and Delilah, with Hedy Lamar, as Delilah, where Samson destroys the Temple of Dagon with his renewed might and Delilah's loving repentance for cutting his hair. Again romance plays an integral role.

But probably the most unbelievable and yet, actual tale of Romance, Royalty and dramatic History is the way in which Cleopatra, in the line of the Greek Ptolemies, ruled Egypt and dealt with both Julius Caesar and Anthony as lovers and rulers.

Probably one of least understood historical moments in time was the Battle of Actium in which Anthony and Cleopatra made a gigantic play for would have become the Eastern Roman Empire and the "old" Romans would have been the West. (This is BC, not the later Eastern and Western empires of 3 and 4 hundred years later). HBO in Rome did an incredible work covering this story beginning in 2005 in which Lindsay Marshall played Cleopatra, though she has been played by several female stars over the years.

If the "Greek influenced" rulership emanating from Antony and Cleopatra would have prevailed, the famously permissive Greek style, liberal religious tolerance and loose administrative Greek way would have continue to affect, the Jews.

Since Alexander and the Greek generals (300 BC), the countries that were ruled had gotten used to the Greek way. But then the "law and order" Romans became the new realty.

One can only speculate what would have happened to Judea, local politics, the existence of warlike "fighters" like Judas Iscariot and his ilk, and even the "need and hope" for a Messiah, if the Holy Land had been influenced by a Greek/Roman way.

But of course the Romans won the Battle of Actium! Antony and Cleopatra perished and the Romans took over the Holy Land, and Jesus was born, and was crucified and the Romans UTTERLY destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, thus beginning the Diaspora and the unfolding of many directly-related historical events.

The existence of sex, romance and life changing love are intrinsic to the human state. Yes, sex is there all the time. But deep, arresting life changing love should be valued and built during those life changing moments.