wishing all my Christian friends who observe, a blessed Good Friday. 🙏🏻

i invite Christian and non-Christian friends alike to view the crucifixion as a political act (in addition to a metaphysical, mystical, spiritual act if that is your belief). the crucifixion, after all, was state sanctioned violence. and in the case of Jesus, state sanctioned violence against a Jewish man who was teaching a message of nonviolence, a message of including the excluded, of reaching out to the marginalized, a message of the outcast as embodiments of the sacred, a message of loving one’s enemies as a way of embodying one’s love for God. a message of love that disrupts the status quo (which almost always brings suffering to someone) and destabilizes the hierarchy of power (that almost always oppresses someone). 

and yet as the writers of the Gospels tell us, at every step, Jesus embodied nonviolence, even when facing the horrifically violent death of crucifixion. i recall the story of the Roman guard who comes to arrest Jesus prior to the crucifixion. Peter, Jesus’ disciple, cuts off the guard’s ear in defense of Jesus. who does Jesus’ rebuke? Peter, not the Roman guard! Jesus rebukes Peter and heals the ear of the Roman guard. imagine that! a path of nonviolence and healing, a path committed to inclusive love, even if it leads to death. it’s revolutionary.

it’s impossible to reconcile such a message of love and nonviolence with the violent, marginalizing, exclusionary rhetoric we hear today or with a love for weapons of violence and war, over the lives of children. Jesus’ message of love is still challenging us in these times.

may hearts open, may sanity arise, and may such a revolutionary love find a home in our words and actions.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏻

#GoodFriday #Crucifixion #Jesus #JesusChrist #DeathPenalty #Nonviolence #Nonharming #Revolutionary #Love #OpenHeart #Suffering #Healing #Sacred #JinpaLhaga #JMWart #Art #Enso #Cross #ContemplativeArt

hard truths are not always polite. kindness is not always comfortable. niceness and politeness don’t want to stir the pot, do not want to disrupt, and in their avoidance, they protect the status quo.
kindness wants to treat the illness and cure the disease.

the Tennessee GOP led legislature overplayed their hand.

the Tennessee Three, especially and most particularly the two Justins, stood up for truth and love. the two Justins are not just the leaders of tomorrow, they are the leaders of today.

~j
⭕️♥️🙏🏻

Posted @withregram • @ibramxk
Tennessee Republicans can expel these two young brothers but they will never expel the resistance they represent.

🌀

the power of words. the power of presence. the power of standing in love and moving with the authority of love. life itself bears witness. 

this isn’t oppressive force. this isn’t aggression. this isn’t violence. it’s true power, prophetic power, calling out harm, calling upon conscience, calling upon that which is within us that is Love to rise up.

Love leaves no one out.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏻

#OpenHeart #Love #NoOneLeftOut #FierceCompassion #SitDownRiseUp #TransLivesMatter #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga

Posted @withregram • @jamieleecurtis 

When the only people who are left are you, will you hate yourself?

🌀

there is a shortage of empathy, of compassion, warmth, and tenderness in this country for some. yet no shortage of fear, aggression, and willingness to engage in violence.

what a betrayal of this precious, interdependent life! what a grieving of the heart!

we each have the responsibility to look deep within our own heart, to face our own demons and grow up. 

we can choose fear, violence, and weapons of mass violence and carnage, or we can choose love. we need to choose love. survival depends on it. the myth is that our species has evolved only through force and dominance. and surely there is no shortage of that. history is bloody and filled with delusion. however, that’s not the whole story, it isn’t the entire truth – we have survived and thrived through cooperation, through sacrifice, through creativity and collaboration, through caring for the group not just the individual. empathy. altruism. compassion. embodied love.

may hearts open, may we embody love, may sanity arise.

~j

⭕️♥️🙏🏻

#OpenHeart #Sanity #Empathy #Compassion #Kindness #Tenderness #Love #Path #Practice #EngagedBuddhism #JinpaLhaga #MelvinMcLeodQuotes