Gifts of
Strength
“Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream was a manifestation of hope that
humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage
to realize that love and non-violence are not indicators of weakness
but gifts of significant strength.”
Aberjhani
(Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles, Vol. 1)
Since returning from the
Wild Goose Festival, I feel compelled to write about love. I think
spending four days in the rarefied atmosphere of spiritual joy
cracked something open in me. It feels almost dangerously vulnerable.
I think that's because ordinarily we live with so much internal
tension caused by the constant news cycle and 24/7 internet
connection. We're guarded and paranoid. And, it's not because of our
boarder difficulties, nor because terrorists are plotting future
9/11's, but because we-the-people are armed to the teeth and looking for trouble. It is our own divisions that conjure up
apparitions of battlefield chaos. That paranoid energy is in the air
and we feel it all the way to our bones. For four blissful days, I was disconnected from all
that and it was truly a vacation.
I keep writing about love
also because I believe it is the only thing that can save us. I know
that sounds overly dramatic, but we're living in such mean times and
folks are dealing with is so badly—by numbing out on alcohol and
drugs, by buying and packing guns, and by talking trash on social
media. What we don't seem to realize is that we don't have to do
that—we don't have to constantly drill down on all the things that
anger us and make us want to escape. We're like people juggling ten
balls in the air every minute of every day. It's simply not
sustainable. We can lay down those balls, and those guns as well, and ask love to reveal to us a different way of being. A way of non-violence
and peace.
Let's get out of our own
way today. Fear and hatred are poisonous to the soul. Let's allow compassion to free us from these shackles.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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