“I’m thinking about my heart. I guess you’ve heard sometimes it’s heavy. But I just keep moving. When I hit a wall I just look up at the sky.”
~ Ben Lee
the antidote to disconnection is connection.
sometimes, friends, what we need is some fresh air & some time in nature, to reconnect – to “recommune” with life. it is a salve to our wounds, equalizes our body, lifts our spirit, & reminds us of the sacredness present in the vastness & minutiae. take your practice outside – sit, walk, lay, stare into space, open to all the sounds & smells. be with the life you are.
“Kindness never means empowering people’s hatred. Kindness is what disempowers hatred. If we don’t call out hatred directly, we aren’t truly being kind.”
~ Ethan Nichtern
this quote from one of my teachers, is such a beneficial reminder.
the most loving & kindest thing we can do when seeing harm & destruction is to call it out, & then work to end it. this can begin by clearly demanding for it to stop. there’s no neutrality when it comes to cruelty & harm. love & kindness demand we speak & act.
may this be us, in this moment. may we maintain an open heart, a steady & focused mind, & determined courage. may we act with integrity & principle. may we do all of this for the benefit of all beings & life, to mitigate harm & suffering.
…we are living in a moment when we are being told up is down & down is up. but such cruelty, no matter how vocally it is being presented as moral & righteous by the most zealous or fraudulent, goes against everything i learned as a young Christian following the teachings of love from Jesus, or as a practicing Buddhist who centers awareness of our interdependence, non-harming, & fierce compassion as the embodiment of such love.
this is a clarifying moment for all of us to bravely choose love, over & over again. a love that includes all beings, all life – including ourselves & those who may be in opposition.
may open hearts, steady – focused – calm minds, & wisdom arise & prevail in our time for the benefit of all beings in all realms & directions.
it sets free a reservoir of love, an awareness of our interconnection, & an inherent capacity to be with life compassionately.
all which we will need in the times ahead.
so embrace your rawness, your open-heartedness & all it brings. it’s a super power, it’s what makes you fully human, & keeps you from becoming a monster.
please still live a life of principle in love. it is important, it still matters, perhaps more now than at any point within most of our lifetimes. make a vow & commit to it.
to my Black, Indigenous, Asian & beautifully diverse friends of color, i say, YOU BELONG HERE.
to my Latino friends & immigrant families, to all immigrants including those undocumented, i say, YOU BELONG HERE.
to my friends who belong to religious communities outside of alignment with Christian Nationalism or are not part of a religious community at all, i say, YOU BELONG HERE.
this is the ultimate view – our birthright is LOVE & no one can truly take that away from us. yet, on a relative level real harm can happen. marginalization exists, oppression exists, destruction exists. so the ultimate view is worth remembering in such times & it is worth standing up for & speaking up for. it is worthy of our unity & community building, so let’s look out for one another & recommit ourselves to love.
may all those opposed to such love, to the sacredness of all beings without exception, be blessed hard out of their ignorance, fear, & aggression, & into the grace & vastness of love.
i will not diminish the darkness of this moment. many of us are hurting & afraid of what may come, much of that due to what Trump & those around him have proclaimed & promised to do. the grief of this moment is justified & is not resolved with simple platitudes.
however, know this from my heart to yours – the light of love will not be extinguished, even as those who choose cruelty & destruction work hard to diminish its shine. history is filled with stories of the subtlety & resilience of love’s power within community to lift up, heal, & light a path through any darkness. perhaps this is how love succeeds, in the alchemy of our recognized interdependence, & the change impermanence promises.
as a Buddhist, a follower of Jesus’ teachings & mystics across traditions, i know my role is to choose love in the face of whatever comes, to embody fierce compassion in healing wounds, holding hands, breaking bread, breaking systems & structures of harm, opening hearts, & working to end suffering for all who suffer & all that is suffering in the world.
this will be my path, my practice, my work – to work on the side of love, to stand in solidarity with my fellow LGBTQIA+ family, with women, with the undocumented, the immigrant, the Indigenous, Black & POC communities, & all who may be targeted, marginalized, & oppressed. you are love embodied, sacred, & worthy of the fullness & joy of life.
love also speaks truth without fear or favor, so a warning in & with love to all who align with cruelty – all suffer under fascism, all tyrants fall in time, & we cannot serve two masters. choose love.
the light will not be extinguished. our light will not be extinguished.
