love v. fear

It's been a tough few weeks here on Planet Earth. A lot of violence, a lot of suffering, a lot of sorrow and anger and reaction and revenge.
Beirut, Paris, Baghdad, Nigeria and now Mali. Attacks upon the innocent by the ignorant. The rise of bigotry and racism, not just towards foreign Muslims but towards American citizens who are Muslim and, maybe, speak Arabic at American airports.  The rise of Isis is not as much a threat to humanity as the rise of hate.  The desperate plight of refugees. Everywhere I look, I see tender-hearted people who are in pain, and hard-hearted people who are in rage. It's very hard to process, very hard to bear.

We see fear-based human movement happening across the world — namely, an impulse toward CLOSING EVERYTHING DOWN.

Close your borders.
Close your town.
Close your wallets.
Close your eyes.
Close your heart.
Close your mind.


This is what most humans do when we feel cornered and threatened. We close everything down. We do it on a global scale and we do it on a personal scale. We stop being who we really are; we are creatures of love. All too often, our love is the first thing to go when we feel overwhelmed. We start saying to our fellow man: "Your suffering is not my problem. I have enough problems. I don't have any space to understand, much less hold, your pain. I'm too busy with my own pain.  Goodbye." Or maybe even, in moments of high emotional charge, hurt or, what hurt really is, fear, "Fuck you." 

I've closed my heart to people, and I've had other people close their hearts to me. I've experienced the death of love from both sides — and it's painful for both sides. I certainly know this to be true: Anytime you shun another, you shun yourself, you shun that part of you that is love.

Love is our only truth. To fail to love is to choose fear instead of love. Love. Radical trust. Same thing. 

Love is hard because we must refuse to see the delusion that fear is ever real. Staying soft and open in a difficult world, staying in love instead of fear,  is hard. Forgiveness is hard.  Communication is hard. Empathy is hard. Compassion is hard.  This hard work is the work of love.

One of the great powers of the delusion of fear is we believe it is real. It is not. Only love is real.

These feel like soft words, but they are not soft, and they are not for amateurs. These words push you sometimes to very difficult and uncomfortable places in your mind and in your heart. These words challenge you. These words push you to think past your own needs and fears and emotions. These words force you to listen to people you don't want to love, and to be loving to everyone — sometimes to the point that it stretches your heart a few sizes larger. Sometimes to the point that you must make difficult sacrifices. These words make you suffer at times, because they feel so impossible to achieve. These words are the hardest work in the world, because the easiest thing in the world is exactly the opposite — to just shut yourself down.

Keep your hearts open, everyone. Don't give up on us, or on yourself, or on anybody. Keep your mercy alive.