🧩🧸🎯🥰💌💘💝💖❤️‍🩹❤️💜🤎💨🩶🤍💚💙🖤🧡💛🩵💗💓💞💕💟❣️💔💔❤️‍🔥

A-B-B-A

WHAT DOES LOVE DO?

❤️🌎🎨🎧🎬💃🏿🙏🏿❤️‍🔥

Beloveds,

I want to invite you into something.

But before I give you the link, I want you to understand why I made it.

This is A-B-B-A.

It is a collection of movies, music, conversations, teachings, stories, serious things, ridiculous things, romance, action, adventure, faith, questions, laughter, tears and sometimes something I included for no deeper reason than:

I LIKE DAT SONG.

🤣🎶💃🏿

And all of it belongs.

Because this isn’t really a collection about movies.

It isn’t really a collection about music.

It isn’t even a collection where every piece is supposed to teach us something.

It is about something much simpler.

And much bigger.

LOVE.

❤️

If you’ve spent any time with me, you’ve heard me ask:

WHY CAN’T I BE LOUD?

But being loud has never meant everybody shouting all the time.

Sometimes we should be loud.

Sometimes we should be quiet.

Sometimes love requires us to stand up and say:

THIS MATTERS.

Sometimes love requires us to stop talking long enough to hear somebody else.

Being quiet by choice is not the same thing as being silenced.

Having a voice means having the freedom to decide when to speak, when to shout, when to sing, when to question, when to laugh, when to protest—and when to simply listen.

My voice matters.

And so does yours.

That is where this collection begins.

❤️🌎

I am a woman of faith.

So the name ABBA means something deeply personal to me.

Abba, Father.

🙏🏿

I love God.

I believe God loves this world.

And that shapes how I try to move through it.

But hear me:

You do not have to believe what I believe to be welcome here.

If you love God, come.

If you’re an atheist, come.

If you’re agnostic, come.

If you’re questioning everything, come.

If you’ve never known God, come.

If you’re angry with God, come.

If you don’t know what you think, come.

Come as YOU.

❤️

Different races.

Different cultures.

Different bodies.

Different abilities.

Different histories.

Different beliefs.

Different voices.

Different ways of moving through this world.

Those distinctions are real.

We don’t have to erase them.

I don’t have to stop being me so you can recognize my humanity.

And you don’t have to become me before I recognize yours.

Love has every color.

🎨🌎

So the question isn’t whether we can make everybody the same.

I don’t want that.

The question is:

WHAT DOES LOVE DO?

Does love see you?

Does love listen?

Does love stay?

Does love protect?

Does love tell the truth?

Does love make room?

Does love stand beside somebody when standing beside them costs something?

Does love speak when silence would participate in harm?

Can love disagree without disappearing another human being?

Can love learn somebody else’s world without demanding that they abandon it?

Can love say:

I see you.

❤️

Because that is the center of everything I have been trying to say.

YOU MATTER TO ME.

Why?

Because I see you.

Your life matters to me.

Your voice matters to me.

Your joy matters to me.

Your pain matters to me.

Your story matters to me.

YOU matter to me.

Not because you’re like me.

Not because you agree with me.

Not because you’ve figured everything out.

Not because you’ve lived perfectly.

Not because of what you can do for me.

You matter because you are here.

🌎❤️

And that is why this collection can hold so many different things.

Some of these movies deal with serious subjects.

Some will make us think.

Some may make us uncomfortable.

Some may introduce us to lives very different from our own.

Some are about friendship.

Some are about family.

Some are about faith.

Some are about injustice.

Some are about courage.

Some are about grief.

Some are about romantic love.

Some are action.

Some are adventure.

And some are simply:

PASS THE POPCORN.

🍿🤣

Because life isn’t only the difficult stuff.

And love shouldn’t show up only when somebody is hurting.

Love comes to the celebration too.

❤️‍🔥💃🏿

Sometimes love dances.

Sometimes love laughs until its stomach hurts.

Sometimes love sits around watching movies with friends.

Sometimes love turns the music WAY too loud.

Sometimes love sings every word.

Sometimes love doesn’t know a single word and sings anyway.

🤣🤣🤣

Sometimes love says:

WE FOUND LOVE.

NOW DANCE.

💃🏿🕺🏿❤️

That’s not frivolous.

Joy matters.

I don’t merely want people to survive this world.

I want us to live in it.

Love in it.

Laugh in it.

Learn from one another in it.

Speak in it.

Listen in it.

Dance in it.

Rest in it.

Question things in it.

Change things that need changing.

Get loud about things that require our voices.

Get quiet when somebody else’s voice needs the room.

And occasionally do absolutely NOTHING profound.

🤣

That is part of being alive too.

And maybe that’s why movies and music can connect people in ways arguments sometimes can’t.

For a couple of hours, a story lets us enter somebody else’s life.

For four minutes, a song can put completely different people on the same dance floor.

We don’t have to solve every difference first.

Sometimes we simply recognize one another.

Oh.

You love too.

You hurt too.

You laugh too.

You’ve been afraid too.

You’ve needed somebody too.

You’ve screwed up too.

You’ve needed another chance too.

You dance terribly too.

🤣💃🏿

I see you.

And maybe tomorrow we understand one another a little better because tonight we shared a song.

❤️🌎🎶

That’s the connection.

That’s Why Can’t I Be Loud?

My voice matters.

Your voice matters too.

That’s You Matter to Me.

Your life is worthy of being seen.

That’s You Are Not Alone.

There is room beside me.

That’s:

One step. One step. One step.

You don’t have to solve everything before you belong.

And that’s:

KEEP ON BEING…YOU!

Because love should never require your disappearance.

❤️‍🔥

So I’m opening the collection.

The link will be public.

Come watch.

Come listen.

Come think.

Come disagree.

Come learn.

Come laugh.

Come cry.

Come worship if you worship.

Come question if you question.

Come dance.

Come sit quietly.

Come be loud.

Come be YOU.

Just don’t require somebody else’s disappearance in order to make room for yourself.

🌎❤️

And underneath all of this is the reason I keep trying.

The reason I keep making room.

The reason I keep saying your life matters to me.

It’s actually pretty simple.

God loves you.

So do I.

🙏🏿❤️🌎

And after all of that—

because apparently we have been serious long enough—

🤣🤣🤣

GET IN THE CAR.

TURN UP RASCAL FLATTS.

WE RIDIN’.

🚗💨🎶💃🏿❤️🌎

Because sometimes using your voice sounds like advocacy.

Sometimes it sounds like testimony.

Sometimes it sounds like telling somebody:

I see you.

And sometimes it sounds like singing your favorite damn song.

❤️‍🔥

Come enjoy some life with me, Beloveds.

Asking for A Friend,
Cassandra

#YourLifeMattersToMe

Note: One step. One step. One step. You are loved. You are NOT alone. Keep on being…YOU!