When Outrage Is A Flower Grown From The Seed Of Love
Finding congruence between my spiritual and political selves
Hello Everyone! Thanks for being here.
Since my cancer diagnosis a year ago I’ve not stopped talking and writing about love. I’ve come to understand that’s a common experience for many. Facing the fact of one’s mortality tends to reveal what is and isn’t important in life. And it turns out that what is important in life is love, and what isn’t important in life is everything that isn’t love.
I’ve expressed this sentiment in countless ways over the last year and each time it irks people. I tweet “Everything but I love you is small talk” and without fail more than a few people get very upset. I understand why. It’s easy to think that when I say “love” I mean roses and valentines. And I do mean that sometimes. In a poem I wrote for my partner at the end of chemo I said, “I had no idea how much would change when all that mattered became all that mattered.” But most often when I’m talking about love, romantic love is not what I’m referring to.
When I say “love” these days I most often mean it in a political sense. I believe love must be at the heart of every social justice movement if the movement has a fighting chance. And when I say fighting, yes I do mean fighting. Fighting isn’t innately in opposition to love. Love is fighting for one’s rights. Love is fighting for freedom. Love is fighting to end war and occupation. Love is fighting for the right to make one’s own choices about one’s own body.
I’m learning there is a natural congruence between my spiritual and political selves, but sometimes there is a language barrier when trying to communicate it. Words like non-resistance and surrender are commonly found in many powerful Buddhist teachings that are working to create a more just world. But in the West, such terms are often frowned upon by folks working for political change. In activist communities, “surrender” and “non-resistance” equate to giving up, choosing to be passive about the horrors of the world, doing nothing when so much needs to be done. I’ve been working to find ways to translate some of my spiritual learnings so I can:
Stop bugging the living daylights out of people! :)
Create art that inspires political action while also inspiring a deep sense of compassion for the human experience that challenges us all.
For today, I thought I’d share a few lines taken from a longer piece I wrote long ago in which I tried to define what love looks like to me in regards to caring for our world and each other. My politics were raised by a group of activists a generation older than myself. My mentors believe it to be nearly blasphemous to make art that isn’t backed up by direct action. Through them I learned the sacredness of outrage, and the holiness of political resistance and protest. Through them I learned that love often looks like fighting with one’s whole heart to dismantle unloving systems of oppression.
. . . .
For every queer school kid
who has had to take martial arts lessons
to survive recess.
.
For every drag queen at stonewall
forced to fight for her life with the daggers of her stilettos.
.
For every woman right now ripping off the bible’s belt
and taking it to the patriarchy’s ass.
.
For everyone working to take our power all the way back
to the first glacier that had to learn how to swim.
.
And for those who have never known protest
to be a holy hymn.
.
Who think it’s an exaggeration to use the word facsism
when describing what is ruling this nation.
.
When the earth is being beaten, muzzled,
tied to the coal slinging tracks
.
outrage is a flower
grown from the seed of love.
.
And sometimes love must ready its hearts teeth,
tear its incisors through the leash of hate to reach peace.
.
During a time when lies
are invading the land of truth,
.
let us know hope
is just an idea
if it doesn’t lace its boots.
. . . .
Thank you for being here.
Love and Boot Laced Hope, Andrea 🖤
. . . .
📚 My bestselling book 'You Better Be Lightning' is the winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards and a Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist. Get your own copy (signed copies available too!)
📣 Add to the conversation: What is important in life is love, and what isn’t important in life is everything that isn’t love. Share your thoughts on this statement in the comments