Love as the Foundation of Our Movements

Beyond politics,
beyond ideology, beyond analysis, beyond protest,
beyond differences in interpretation, beyond varying visions,
beyond conflicting accounts, beyond desires for justice,
beyond organizations, beyond factions and movements,
beyond personalities, beyond strategies, beyond tactics and targets, beyond lines around us, beyond manifestos and statements,
beyond all the language, all the words,
all the actions and the marches and the rallies,

beyond all this,

love is all that remains.. .

and without love, none of this matters.. love must be the foundation of everything and must go beyond everything.

Love must be the foundation of our movements.

Anger at our conditions can not be the primary foundation of our work, of our walk, the reason for our relationships with one another, the reason why we move, what guides us…

Neither can it be frustration with existing systems.

Or disappointment in the people set up to lead us.

It can not be a thirst for our own power.

It can not even be a hunger for fulfillment

because what will move us when we have been personally satisfied? what of others still empty?

It must be love. Not love for this society or even love for change, but love for one another, love for ourselves, love for God.

Love is the most radical act.

Love is the best thing we can do for one another and for ourselves. The love I am describing is supernatural.

The way we are called to love is beyond human attainment. We can only do it through God granting us the ability. While human love is based on conditions, God's love is based on His vision.

For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Love is the most revolutionary act because nothing can transform like love can. God transformed the world through love when He sent a part of his very self to earth in the form of a human to teach us how to love through loving. This person is Jesus Christ.

(Thank you God for Your Love! It is what keeps me going!)

Here's the best statement out here on how important love is and what it really means to love!

If I speak with the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love, I am merely a resounding gong or a tinkling cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I grew up, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully know. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians Chapter 13, the Holy Bible.

And so love being all must be our all.

And we must give our all to love despite the difficulties, the bondage, the walls and boundaries between us, the hurts and the pain, the sadnesses, the betrayals, the failures and the fears.

What keeps us from loving? Is it fear? Is it the dangers? Is it the sometimes concrete risks to our lives? Yes, I believe these are all barriers to loving. Still, we we walk and work together in love so that we may create a world in which we can love without fear.

Escuela Popular Norteano and Incite! Boston put together a workshop called Loving Big.

This workshop addresses some of our challenges to loving without fear. It is designed for women of color who have experienced violence, especially violence from people in our families, neighborhoods or intimate networks. It is focused on healing and finding solutions to violence that come from ourselves and our communities. Let me know if you're interested in a copy of this workshop. It's wonderful and even has an accompanying mix CD/ list of songs you should play throughout the workshop.

What is it that Anu told me that a friend of hers wrote about love? I have to find out. It was quite amazing.

Walking With Questions: Lessons for Our Movement and My Life

In Questions & Swords: Folktales of the Zapatista Revolution, Subcomandante Marcos, spokesperson of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (the EZLN), tells a folktale about two gods, Ik’al and Votan, who want to move, but don’t know how, what direction, or where they are going. Their first move is a question, and they walk with questions. They walk and ask questions along the way, not knowing the answers to all of them, but still asking and answering questions as they move along the way.

Here are some excerpts from “The Story of Questions” As told by Subcomandante Marcos. (In the book, the story is wonderfully illustrated with paintings by Antonio Ramirez.)

They were the same thing. They were one, these two, because one made the other. But they would not walk themselves, staying their ways, these two gods who were one without moving.

….

“Let’s walk, said the one who was two.

“How?” asked the other.

“Where?” asked the one.

And they saw that they had moved a little, first to ask how, then to ask where.

The one who was two became very happy when the one saw that they were moving themselves a little. Both of them wanted to move at the same time, but they couldn’t do it themselves.

“How should we do it then?’

And one would come around first and then the other and they would move just a little but more and they realized that they could move if one went first, then the other. So they came to an agreement that – in order to move – one had to move first, then the other. So they started walking and now no one remembers who started walking first because at the time they were so happy just to be moving…

“..And who cares who was first since we’re moving now?’ said the gods who were one and the same and they laughed at each other and the first agreement they made was to dance, and they danced, one little step by one, one little step by the other, and they danced for a long time because they were so happy that they had found each other.

….

And they saw that the first question was, ‘How do we move?’ and the answer was, ‘Together but separately and in agreement.’ But that question wasn’t important anymore because they realized that they were already walking, and so another question came up when they saw that there were two roads in front of them.

[At this point in the story, seeing that the short road ended right away and “just got over to there” they agreed to take the long road. They were about to start walking when another question arrived, “where does this road take us.” They thought about the answer for a long time when the “two who were one got the bright idea that only by walking the long road were they going to know where the road took them. If they remained where they were, they were never going to know where the long road leads.” So they started walking. Then, “and only then and there” they saw it was taking a long time to walk the road, so they asked themselves, ‘how will we walk for such a long time.’ and because one is afraid to walk by night and the other by day, and after a lot of crying and grief they decide that the one will only walk by day (carrying the other) and the other by night.

This is how the true men and women learned that questions are for walking, not for just standing around and doing nothing. And since then, when true men and women want to talk, they ask questions.

I believe that this story contains important lessons for movement and for struggle. It is especially relevant for movements working to end interpersonal violence through community action and intervention because there are so many questions...when is it safe to put our visions to action? We will always have questions, but we must also move. Walking with questions is the only way to go. Through walking, we will find more questions, but we will have also moved further along than we where at the start. Sometimes, we will pause on the walk, to think, to ponder, to figure out the answer or to wait until the answer comes. Sometimes, as in this story, there will be crying and fear along the journey, but only by walking with questions will we move. This is what movement is all about. Movement involves walking with questions.

This story contains important meaning for my own life journey. Along my path in life, I choose to walk with questions. I also choose to have faith in God that the answers I need will come.