The spiritual journey I am on is very important to me. I do my greatest work not from a place of anger, from pain, from sadness, or from hate, but from a place of love. I understand that people across the world are not in a place to choose love. I do not judge those people. I have been there. But I have looked at myself in the mirror, and I cannot go back there. I can only choose love. And for weeks now, knowing that events are growing darker, I have wondered how to love in the darkest times.
Out of the Dark
I am a child of violent abuse. So is my husband. My husband is from Mexico. He still has family there. We have friends from across Central and South America. The immigrant crisis is not news to us. We have either lived or loved people who have lived these same experiences. These situations have been present for decades upon decades.
Anger at the people separating families does not help the children in cages right now.
“If you are not angry, you are not paying attention.”
I have said this countless times in my social justice warrior voice, sword held high, ready to lop off the head of anyone who opposes me.
But I am not angry. I realized that my anger does no one any good. And it certainly does not change the minds of the ones I would be angry with.
I am not hateful. Hate only hurts me, and no one else. Hate is only helpful to rid myself of abject sadness.
I do have moments of sadness. I just finished listening to children in detention, crying for their parents.
I am a mother. Of course I feel sadness for those children, for their mothers, for the entire situation. Of course I do.
But my sadness does not help them either.
I cannot get sad enough to change things. I cannot get angry enough to change things. I cannot force people to feel things they do not feel.
That’s What Got Us Here
It is anger, on both sides. It hatred, on both sides. It is violence, on both sides, that have gotten us here.
The Trump administration is not doing anything new. These types of atrocities have been committed before, worse in fact. Slave children were sold off from their families, never to be heard from again. And our beloved Thomas Jefferson is quoted as having said that “they” don’t feel things the way “we” do.
We can hate him. Sure.
Or we can recognize that Jefferson, Trump, ICE agents separating families, and everyone else involved sees things completely differently from the way we see them, and many of them have pinched themselves completely off from love.
And we can realize that when we throw rocks at them, when we hurl insults at them, when we work to shame them, they only dig down deeper. And then we dig down deeper.
And now we are engaged in trench warfare, no man’s land between us, dying in pits of our own filth.
And love dies.
Remember that the last words in Anne Frank’s diary were these: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart.”
We cannot change hearts with hate.
There Is a Better Way
So, if you want change, regardless of who you are or which side you are on, come at your change from a place of love.
Vote your conscience. Call your representative.
I live in California, and my senator, Kamala Harris, is quite vocal on this issue.
Run for office.
Donate to the families of the refugees.
The bottom line is we have to be the change, we have to be the light, we have to be the love we want to see.
Mother Theresa was once asked to attend an anti war demonstration, and she said “I’ll never do that. But as soon as you have a pro peace rally I’ll attend that.”
Start at Home
And you can start here, at home.
Love your children, hold them close. Open your heart to other children. Open your heart to other mothers. Be an example of love, so that others, seeing that it lights the way, will join you.
Together, all of us, who have not misplaced our ability to love, who have not lost our way, can change the world. And we have to double down on love when it gets really dark. We have to not be lured by hatred and anger, not be baited by violence and viciousness.
We want Republicans and Democrats, and Green Party and Labor Party and Independents and Libertarians and Communists and Socialists.
We want Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, Wiccans and Atheists.
The world is a big, bold, beautiful place full of diversity and contrast, all good things.
Our problem is not our differences; our problem is that we are trying to get rid of our differences.
We build walls and fences and churches and museums to keep some people in and others out.
Instead, we can build circles and bridges, communities and collectives that include everyone.
What I Do
So no, you cannot have my hate. No one can.
The words I hold closest to my chest in these situations are those of Dr. King: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
You can have all of my love, because the more I give away, the more it grows and the more rapidly it grows.
It would be so easy to hate, to be angry, to be violent in these situations.
I hold my representative accountable to love. I vote based on love. I spend my money based on love. I live according to the principles of love.
I am now two days away from my women’s circle. And at this point, maybe no one else will show up.
But I will.
I will be there.
Because it starts with me.
I will continue to show up with love, with a full heart, and with absolute absence of hate or malice. I will love every single woman who walks through the door, every single woman who wants to love, and we will grow love.
And as I leave my circle each Wednesday, I will leave knowing that I have spent two hours dedicated to the perpetuation of love.
I am doing the work I am here to do. As must we all.
There is plenty that I cannot do, and I will not mourn the absence of those things; I will not be angry at my incapabilities.
Instead, I will grow my strengths, I will build on my light, and I will do my work.
And I trust that you will do yours, whatever work that may be.
Always in love and light,
Shanna