Bottom's up! It's a brand new week and therefore a brand new plague of problems and enriching moments. There were so many things that happened in the weekend- things which sparked so many different directions of thought I can't begin to express them all. For sanctity of mind, let me address only a few.
It is tiresome, the on-going lies. How does anyone get through the day any more? Then it strikes me. A bolt of lightening, just as the singer of 'Crazy Faith' says, and it hits me twice.
Everyone has their own message to share with the world. It is a thing that the soul knows, deep in the bowels of forgotten memories it resides. It is so primitive it associates more with the lizard brain than with the frontal lobe. It reverberates through the chest and pushes out each breath. It is that kind of message. As my father was so kind to bring up my message this morning to a small community in Goleta, I am stimulated to share it in a more public way.
I might be considered an 'emotional person.' This is not to imply that I am weak, or more estro-centric (though I would contend I have ridiculously high levels of that beloved hormone), but merely that I feel deeply. As a society, as a culture, Americans do not give importance to feelings. Our words center on actions and states of being rather than feeling and experience. These things placed aside, I could not hide from my feelings, they would have eaten me from the inside out.
When I began to truly embrace my empathy it lead me directly to a place of sadness. I saw the way the world was and I wept. It made me so depressed, I could not read the newspaper except for the horoscopes and comics. I could not listen to talk or news radio. Anything serious, anything bloody, gruesome, cruel or evil...it was too much for me to bare. It made me hurt so much that I physically ached with the emotional pain. I would have remained this way had I not been sent on a mission trip the summer of 2002.
I had not considered myself a radical before that mission trip. At best, I found myself slightly annoyed, and at worst - downright apathetic. Yet something that summer worked in me. It was as if a catalyst had been thrown into the elixer of me and had stirred some passion into a previously depressed goo. I was able to see, in Central America (Nicaragua and Panama in particular) the effects of my government on other people. I was able to see the scars of war in the land, and in the psyche of the people. I was able to see the danger of nationalism, and of worshipping the idols of political parties. I was able to see how little freedom Americans really had, and how much liberty and joy comes with a lack of things. I was able to see the ties that bring us together across language, culture, socioeconomic, educational, and geographical barriers. It was after this trip that my feeling changed. Instead of being permanently marked by sadness, I became marked by anger.
NOTE: The difference between people who are politically active and people who are not is this: sadness versus anger, respectively. It is no more and no less than this simple difference. Depression forces a person inward and away from action. It slows a person down. Anger is directed outward and motivates a person towards action. It 'revs' up your internal engine, if you will. Though both these emotions are related, and stimulated by the same external variable (the tsunami in Indonesia, or the genocide in Darfur for example) they yield differing results.
My anger radicalized me. It is not a permanent anger. It is an anger that is brought out by actions that reverse our direction as people. My anger stems from war, from children not getting enough attention and tenderness from their parents, from not enough food, from poor distribution of resources, and from the increasing consolidation of power in the hands of a few.
So if anger's not permanent, what else fills that emotional depth? Remember the bolt? Well if you've never listened to 'Crazy Faith' then you don't know that the bolt is love. That is it. It's not some weird psycho-babble or strange freedom fighting slogan (though it may be the most powerful one in existence). Love is the base. Love is my message, the thing that resounds in my head, in my step and my hands. Though I sometimes get caught up in the petty things that bog down the spirit, I always come back to my root. It allows me to forgive people who I may otherwise not have been able to forgive (more on that later). It also allows me to be forgiven. It allows me to serve and be served by my loved ones. It gives me the ability to access overwhelming joy and unfathomable peace. It brings me back to center.
This is not some far out thing, but it might be the most awesome (and I mean this in the classical sense of the word, not the slang) the MOST AWESOME power anywhere. It is love - empathy - compassion (whatever word you want to use) that democratized INdia through Ghandi and his movement. It is love that motivated Martin Luther King, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, and so many others. It is love that brings peace to each individual, and it is shared love that brings peace to fruition in this world. This is the new covenant, and indeed the only covenant that ever existed - that ever really mattered.
It's easy to forget to live it, but it's not easy to forget it when you see it. Love's mark is more permanent than hatred or apathy. It's grace can save millions. It changed my life.
When I opened my heart...really opened it... I started living differently. I chose different occupations based on love for people. A person's priorities can be judged by where his or her resources(time, money, materials) are spent. I changed my priorities, and so I changed how I lived my life. Right now I am an Americorps volunteer at an elementary school. This takes the majority of my week, with sometimes more than 50 hours spent volunteering. I am also a youth pastor at the church where my father is the senior pastor. This takes up approximately 10-20 hours of my weekend time. They are not high paying positions, as you might imagine. This is the path I have chosen and will continue to choose because of love. This is easy for me to say, perhaps because I am young and have no dependents, no spouse. Some might say it is fine for someone in my position to do these things, but a fool's errand to ask this of someone in a different stage of life.
Love can work in any stage of life, any situation, if you let it. A path is cleared once you have opened your heart. You will know where you need to go, what you need to do - and most importantly, you will feel the whole way.
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