Ever feel like time is moving too fast? When his two children were born, my wise uncle set up two fish bowls and put 216 marbles in each fish bowl to symbolize the 216 months they would have with him at home before they would move out. Each month he would take one marble out to remind himself how limited this time would be. As each child was about to move out of the house, there was but one marble left in each fish bowl, but he couldn’t bring himself to remove them. So, the last marble remains in each fish bowl. How can we create more strategies in our own lives to appreciate how short life is and to cherish our most precious moments with those we love?
What connects us most deeply is that which fills our heart with love and that which breaks our hearts with sorrow. It is in this vulnerable soulful place that we can build true relationships. Of course, this is most important with those we love, but it must transcend that realm as well. The late Buddhist monk Maha Ghosananda makes the best case for bringing love into our oppositional and resistance work:
I do not question that loving one’s oppressors—Cambodians loving the Khmer Rouge—may be the most difficult attitude to achieve. But it is a law of the universe that retaliation, hatred, and revenge only continue the cycle and never stop it. Reconciliation does not mean that we surrender rights and conditions, but rather that we use love in all of our negotiations. It means that we see ourselves in the opponent—for what is the opponent but a being in ignorance, and we ourselves are also ignorant of many things. Therefore, only loving kindness and right mindfulness can free us .1
Theologian William J. Everett defined a sinner as ‘a soul enclosed in the prison of the self.’2 One is trapped within self-absorption. Before love can be other-reaching, it must be self-transcending. It must break us out beyond the narrow confines of the self. Karen Armstrong, in her memoir The Spiral Staircase, writes:
Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. It dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace that holds us back from the experience of the sacred.3
Consider how Cesar Chavez thought about compassion for all and its connection with a commitment to nonviolence:
Kindness and compassion toward all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bull fighting and rodeos are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent toward all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.4
The repercussions of not living a life filled with love are not only on society but upon ourselves. Dostoevsky explained that ‘Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.’5 Not living each day with love would indeed be a miserable existence. It is this capacity for love that makes us human and gives us a consciousness of that humanity. Dean Ornish, a researcher based out of the University of California, San Francisco, writes, ‘I used to feel I was loved because I was special, now I feel special because I am loved and because I can love.’6
In our activism we may be focused on our country, on many nations, or even on the world’s environment. But we should be sure to never forget what is closest to home. In a 1958 speech to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt said:
Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home, in the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works…Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.7
Think globally, but act locally. Building the world in which we wish to live starts in our homes, offices, and everyday interactions. Although romantics will try to convince us otherwise, love is not an emotion but an action. We don’t demonstrate love by merely stating ‘I love you’ but by demonstrating acts of love. Do we honor others, listen to them, support them, and give to them to help fulfill their needs? That is love.
Rabbi Avi Weiss explains:
Spiritual activists are often involved in the big issues that receive most of the media attention, yet equally vital are the smaller causes that touch the lives of relatively few and go largely unnoticed. While public figures in government, academics in the universities, and members of the clergy passionately debate the question of which major cause deserves the most attention, to me true activism recognizes that the greatest causes of all involve basic human needs. Providing another human being with the basic necessities of life is the ultimate of priorities.8
In our activist camps, we do not merely work together. Rather, we must take care of one another and build sacred community together. We show up at each other’s houses of mourning, bring soup when they are sick, change our schedules to talk when they are down. We lift one another up. This is the love that is needed to sustain our movements. We must transition continually from warriors to healers. We fight for systemic justice while simultaneously caring compassionately for those around us, wounded warriors.
The Zen Master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, writes that:
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.9
To foster relationships that don’t carry blame and judgment—that is truly a powerfully transformative and beautiful way to live.
Exercise 1: Meditate on a time when you felt most loved. What did another person do for you? What did that feeling feel like? Can you recall filling yourself with the joy of that love?
Exercise 2: When was a time you made another feel deeply loved? What did you do for them? How did they respond to this? How did that moment make you feel?