Revolutionary love

My wife and I recently went to the beach for a week of rest and relaxation.  Our idea of "fun" is to do absolutely nothing.  We both usually bring a few books along, and this time was no exception.  I ended up reading three books (one of which I had started before we left) - a gigantic 1,000 page biography on Winston Churchill (Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts), which I thoroughly enjoyed (this was the one I had already started); an older book on game theory (Thinking Strategically by Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff); and a dystopian novel that is apparently the first in a trilogy (The Dandelion Insurrection by Rivera Sun).  

I spend most of my time reading non-fiction.  Lately, or so it seems, the novels I've read are from the post-apocalpytic or dystopian genre (what's that say about me?).  Here are some of the recent ones: The Postman by David Brin, which was made into a movie starring Kevin Costner and Will Patton, New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which was made into a movie starring Viggo Mortensen.  Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the story, there was something about The Dandelion Insurrection that just didn't click with me.  Regardless, the major theme of the book was powerful and poignant for our time.  

Towards the beginning of the story, one of the main characters, "The Man from the North" wrote to his followers, "In a time of hate, love is a revolutionary act."  Wow!  If ever there was a time for revolutionary love, we are living in one.  The statement was so powerful that I wanted to dig a little deeper into its meaning.

I came across a TED talk by the filmmaker, lawyer, and activist Valarie Kaur, who gave a TED talk entitled, "3 lessons of revolutionary love in a time of rage" in 2017 and founded the Revolutionary Love Project.  One of her friends was killed in a hate crime after September 11, 2001, prompting her to document hate crimes against Muslims and Sikhs in the United States, which resulted in an award-winning documentary, Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath.

Kaur defines revolutionary love as follows:

“Revolutionary love is a well-spring of care, an awakening to the inherent dignity and beauty of others and the earth, a quieting of the ego, a way of moving through the world in relationship, asking: ‘What is your story? What is at stake? What is my part in your flourishing?’ Loving others, even our opponents, in this way has the power to sustain political, social and moral transformation. This is how love changes the world.”

“Love calls us to look upon the faces of those different from us as brothers and sisters. Love calls us to weep when their bodies are outcast, broken or destroyed. Love calls us to speak even when our voice trembles, stand even when hate spins out of control, and stay even when the blood is fresh on the ground. Love makes us brave. The world needs your love: the only social, political and moral force that can dismantle injustice to remake the world around us – and within us.”

“To pursue a life of revolutionary love is to walk boldly into the hot winds of the world with a saint’s eyes and a warrior’s heart – and pour our body, breath, and blood into others.”

Perhaps all of this is a little too deep for a beach read, but I was absolutely mesmerized by it all.  Given everything that is going on in our world today (and I won't catalog them here, as all you have to do is watch the evening news), we need revolutionary love.  It could be the only thing that keeps our world from falling apart.

I occasionally get accused of politicizing too much (see "A Brief Hiatus" from July, 2020).  You can certainly choose to ignore this post.  But I ask you, before you do, to just take a moment to peer deep inside your own heart and ask yourself, "What can I do to make this world a better place?"  I bet that your answer sounds a lot like revolutionary love.

"In a time of hate, love is a revolutionary act."