Reflections On Love In Action: Living Our Lives As a Prayer

 

Thank you to my friend Miguel who put this together from pictures of signs that I had taken several years back at a protest on behalf of immigrants.

"We need a caring revolution."   

— Riane Eisler

Many years ago I was participating in one of the twice monthly gatherings that my friend Linda Neale organized and facilitated. This time there was a pastor from a church who was the guest speaker. What I remember most vividly was how she spoke of "living her life as a prayer." This intention was one that I would come to cherish, absorb, and, with each passing year of my life, put more deeply into practice.

There are so many of us who speak of praying. And yet, for me, the larger question is how do we put into practice what we are praying for? How do our deepest values manifest in our lives, in our daily lives? What are we praying for?

It is clear that no two of us would answer this question the same. Yet, and regardless of our religious or spiritual tradition, if we embody values rooted in compassion, kindness, generosity, and love, it is my belief that we will share more in common than we may be consciously aware of.

What I have been challenged with is how to put my prayers, my values, my intentions into practice. For me, it's been important to be mindful, to be clear of what my intentions are. Broadly, as I've healed and expanded and strengthened my own heart and grown increasingly conscious, these intentions have come to speak to me most deeply:

• Do no harm
• Live my life as a prayer
  
• Pursue and speak the truth
  
• Expand my circle of caring to include all of life on Earth
  
• Dedicate myself to supporting my children, grandchildren, and all children everywhere in healing where there has been trauma, addiction, and ancestral and cultural harm
  
• Dedicate myself, one day at a time, to the work of alleviating the suffering in our world
• Seek in an ongoing way to identify, heal, and transform any obstacles that I have built against compassion and love
• Be kind

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Bringing mindfulness into my daily life has been an integral part of how it is that I've been able to transform myself, in an ongoing way, so that I am more readily disposed to act out of my concern for the well-being of myself and others. In this way, I've been growing my capacity to put my prayers, my values, my intentions into action.

Because there is so much suffering in our world, and because this suffering can challenge any of us to stay open in our hearts and minds, again and again I've experienced that taking some form of action is an antidote to my despair. I truly value the ripples that any of us extend outward which in some way act to alleviate so much distress, pain, suffering, trauma and loss. 

While I will list here just a glimpse into what holds heart and meaning for me, I respect that each person's list will be unique. And, that said, the connecting link will most likely be found in the value and love of the sacredness of life on Earth. 

This is true, I believe, for all of us who are healing and expanding our hearts and coming to know in our deepest selves that we are all connected, all related, all family. And as I feel how your suffering and your joy is also mine, that is the consciousness which pushes me to put love into action.

* * * * *

Caring for the Earth and for all of her inhabitants, this is just a glimpse into identifying the issues and roots of suffering and violence and, in response, what love in action looks like for me:

• The climate crisis: For many years I've been researching the warming of our planet and its impact. I've been sharing repeatedly what I have been learning. I've joined groups and participated in marches and rallies. Knowing that the animal industrial complex contributes greatly to climate change, and also to the enormous suffering of other beings, I have chosen to be vegetarian since 2006. I also donate to causes committed to fighting the forces of greed, ignorance, and the destruction of the Earth and to instead building a sustainable, healthy, healing, and just world.
  
• Poverty and houselessness: I research the underbelly of poverty and share what I am learning. I refuse to blame the poor for poverty and instead bring them compassion and caring. I give a dollar or more + granola bars to each and every person standing on a street corner whose hand I can reach and, most importantly, I communicate that I see this person before me, I care, and they matter. I donate and vote for people and issues committed to alleviating poverty and transforming its larger roots and causes.
  
• Political polarization: I work with my triggers and, while setting boundaries, I also seek to understand and bring compassion to those whose actions are causing so much harm to themselves and others. I work to hold those in positions of power accountable. I try to not identify as a democrat or a republican but rather communicate the issues and how they relate to my values and the welfare of us all, regardless of political party. I refuse to spread hate and violence. I call out hate and violence where I see it.
  
• Propaganda, disinformation: I am fiercely committed to pursuing truth wherever it will lead. I will not defend those in positions of power whose policies and actions cause harm, regardless of political party. I seek independent resources of information that have no corporate funding. I stay informed and read and research deeply in an ongoing way. I am inspired by many teachers whose integrity is clear and who embody a profound commitment to truth and love. I practice being a voice of truth and love.
  
• Economic disparity and injustice: I research deeply neoliberalism, fascism, predatory capitalism, greed, and the root causes of the ever growing redistribution of wealth upward. I expose the shadow side of our economy and highlight how another vastly different world is possible. I attend marches and rallies. I contribute to relevant causes and people who are fighting for a more just world.
• Healthcare: Healthcare is a human right. Period. I join others in fighting for a caring system of healthcare rather than one rooted in greed, profit, cruelty, and heartlessness.
  
• Racial injustice: I research and own the ways that I have absorbed racism. I work in an ongoing way to learn how to practice being an anti-racist in my daily life. I read and read more. I listen and absorb the experiences of others. I share what I am learning. I attend marches and rallies. Black Lives Matter signs have long been displayed at our home.
  
• Criminal justice: I've long researched the criminal injustice system, the New Jim Crow, and the American prison industrial complex. I support in every way that I can a radically different system in our country which would actually embody justice. I support programs which seek to help struggling people rather than punish them, causing ever more harm and perpetuating the cycle of trauma. I seek to have the death penalty ended for good. I believe in the capacity for most humans to overcome the ways that they've engaged in harm when they themselves are no longer harmed by systems of injustice.
  
• Targeting immigrants, LGBTQ, and other marginalized peoples: My husband and I have been doing volunteer work with Afghan and Syrian refugees settling in our area. Ron and I have developed deeply caring and beautiful relationships with our new friends. We've also long attended marches and rallies on behalf of immigrants and other marginalized peoples. I expose lies and misinformation. I stand with people who are victims of harm, prejudice, violence, and ignorance. I vote.
  
• War, American exceptionalism: I oppose war. Period. I participate in marches and rallies. I research and expose the shadow side of the military industrial complex. I understand that America is exceptional in its tolerance, normalization, and justification of violence. I shine bright light on the shadow side of our nation and oppose violence in every way possible. I work towards a peaceful nation and world.
  
• Child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, gun violence: I research and work to understand deeply the root causes of so much violence in American culture. For 30 years I worked professionally with children and families. I've been healing and transforming my own history of trauma and abuse for nearly 40 years. In every way possible I advocate for victims of violence. I research and illuminate the roots of violence. I stand for a peaceful nation and world rather than one dominated by guns and fear and the scapegoating of the "Other."
  
• Patriarchy, colonialism, misogyny: I've been working for some time now to identify and shed the layers that I have absorbed that have their roots in colonialism, patriarchy, and misogyny. I recognize this as an ongoing process. I speak to what I am learning and also to what a vastly different culture and world would look like and the values that it would embody. I give voice to the great need that we have as a nation for accountability and reconciliation, healing and transformation, and comprehensive education. I expose how the history of violence that is denied and unaddressed continues to replay in the present and only worsen and grow.
• Education: I support in every way possible an expansive and depth of comprehensive education for all children and adults in our nation and beyond. This includes my 100% support of Critical Race Theory and the profound need for us all to truly know and understand our history and its influence on the present. I understand that the multiple crisis that we face today, and in the past, can be directly linked to the proliferation of endless forms of misinformation and distraction, denial and silence, and polarization and other techniques of disempowerment which are continually leading us away from the deeper facts and truths that are essential for us to know. There can be no solution for that which is denied.
  
• Disconnection, depression, addiction, anxiety: First, and in an ongoing way, I heal and strengthen my own heart through addressing and transforming my own experiences of disconnection, depression, addiction, and anxiety. I have a spiritual practice embodying gratitude and grief, tenderness and compassion, kindness and love. I seek to maintain a fluid open heart. And today, in every way I can — whether through writing, mentoring, listening and witnessing, holding with tenderness and compassion, being a loving friend and mother and grandmother and partner to Ron — I seek to be a human being who embodies and spreads kindness and love. 

* * * * *

The list that I am sharing above is simply an overview and brief reflection of what living my life as a prayer embodies. In doing so, I seek to illuminate both the many areas of needed radical change and that there is something, no matter how small, that can be done to address the many root causes of widespread suffering, trauma, and violence. 

 

Joanna Macy speaks of this as "active hope" — acting in some way on behalf of our world and regardless of outcome. No matter how overwhelming things may look, our individual and collective caring and actions are still greatly needed.

I also deeply respect and acknowledge that many of you have already long been rooted in your own paths of healing, awakening, and acting on behalf of the well-being of our planetary sisters and brothers and alleviating their suffering. Thank you. Thank you. 

Again, I affirm that there are so many ways in which we can make a difference, our difference, what it is that we can contribute. I am blessed with having friends and people who I am connected with who devote themselves to writing, to painting, to political activism, to independent journalism, to being voices of truth and fierce compassionate action. There are countless faces of what love in action can look like.

 

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Over the years, what has become increasingly clear to me as I've grown through my own spiritual journey is the need to embody prayers which have their roots in a caring revolution, in our deepest values and intentions, and in loving action that is ongoing and evolving. I see so clearly how we are all needed. 

 

It is also my belief that this is especially true for elders in our society. We have for too long been a culture starved for the wisdom of its elders. Our children and youth need for us to actively join hands and hearts with them, doing our part in the universal struggle to create a just, sustainable, caring, and peaceful world.

 

In this time of deep disconnection for so many from ourselves and others, I am witness to a great need to recognize and heal the inner walls that we've unknowingly built. And as we do, the outer walls will come down. At least this has certainly been my experience. And then, naturally, we are inspired to be part of a caring revolution, one which at its heart is a reflection of love in action. 

May we all increasingly discover and manifest our part in healing ourselves and our beautiful hurting world. The ripples we create matter. Deeply.

Bless us all,

Molly