Dear Friends,
Summer is here! I am excited to roll out our summer series! Each month, we will email you a toolkit for one of the three parts on the Revolutionary Love Compass — love for others, opponents, and ourselves.
Our focus this month is LOVING OTHERS: SEE NO STRANGER.
All the tools here come straight from our new Revolutionary Love Learning Hub. It’s our free online platform with curricula, teaching videos, meditations, music, and more. You can deepen your exploration by visiting the portal page for each compass practice, which is linked in each section. Scroll down to get started!
May this summer series ignite your imagination and spark ways to bring these practices into your life and community!
Yours,
Valarie
“Wonder is an orientation to humility: recognizing that others are as complex and infinite to themselves as we are to ourselves. Wondering about a person gives us information for how to love them. Wonder is the wellspring of love.”
What is your first memory of feeling wonderstruck? Notice where you were and what it was. Notice the felt-sense of awe in your body.
What is your first memory of wondering about another person? Choose a moment that felt safe. Notice what openness and curiosity feels like in your body.
How long has it been since you felt this? Maybe it’s a familiar sensation. If it’s rare, without judgment, notice the qualities of calling those feelings back into you.
Invite wonder into the present moment. Open your eyes, look around the room for the most for the most beautiful thing in your view. Choose something living, a plant, a pet, tree out your window, a face in a photograph. You are a part of me I don’t yet know. Notice what this feels like in your body
To go deeper into wonder as a building block for love, visit the WONDER portal.
“Grief is the price of love. Loving someone means that one day, there will be grieving. They will leave you, or you will leave them. The more you love, the more you grieve. Loving someone also means grieving with them. It means letting their pain and loss bleed into your own heart.”
Watch this video on the GRIEVE portal and explore how to become brave with your grief.
“When you love someone, you fight to protect them when they are in harm’s way. If you ‘see no stranger’ and choose to love all people, then you must fight for all those in harm’s way. This is the path of the warrior-sage: the warrior fights, the sage loves. It’s a path of revolutionary love.”
You need 3 things to walk the path of a warrior-sage:
1. SWORD: What can you use to fight on behalf of others—your pen, your voice, your art, your pocketbook, your presence? Begin where you are, your home or campus or community, on the front lines or behind the scenes.
2. SHIELD: What can you use to protect yourself and others when the fight is dangerous—your camera, legal counsel, a group of allies, public witness? Your safety matters. How will you protect yourself and others? What brings you joy, lifts your spirits, and helps you breathe?
3. SACRED COMMUNITY: Who are three people in your life who will fight with and for you and others? If you are not able to imagine three people, start with one or two. What communities can you fight alongside with? Explore community organizations that fight for justice, especially those where women of color are free to lead.
Visit the FIGHT portal for ways to develop your sword and shield.
Did you know?
Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. It is recognized each year on June 19th and began in 1865 when Union soldiers landed in Texas to share the news that the enslaved were now free. Learn more about Juneteenth here!
This week marks one whole year that SEE NO STRANGER was released into the world! This book is my life’s work — a practical guide to changing the world, a synthesis of wisdom, a chronicle of personal and communal history – all joined together by a story of awakening. It lays the foundation for the framework of the revolutionary love compass. You can get your copy here.
In the past year it has been an honor to receive your stories of how the book found you at just the right moment, how you’ve shared it with your parent/child/spouse/community, how it has seen you through your own great transitions. Thank you for taking these stories into your heart and sharing the medicine of revolutionary love.
Calling all teachers, professors, faith leaders, community leaders, and learners of all kinds! Use these lesson plans to bring revolutionary love to your classroom or community. We draw from wisdom past and present, from the Black Lives Matter movement to disability justice, Grace Lee Boggs to bell hooks. Download the guide for a suggested donation or for free.
We want to hear from you! Have you been working with SEE NO STRANGER or the Revolutionary Love Learning Hub in your home, community, or congregation? You can submit your experiences and feedback here.