Dear Family,
We have all heard the call to love. But how do we put the love ethic into practice?
Anti-racism is the bridge; beloved community is the destination. But where do we go to learn how to do this?
We are missing a civic space, a clearing, where we learn how to be in right relationship with each other. Amid severe turmoil and injustice, this is perhaps the most urgent need, the lasting revolution, what Dr. King called “a revolution of values.” This is my vision for the Revolutionary Love Project: to ignite and equip a critical mass of us to build beloved community where we are.
We are inspiring pockets of revolutionary love across the nation. We need your help to scale up this work. Please make a donation now and join our Beloved Donor Circle! Scroll down for our thank you gifts to you.
This summer, we officially launched our flagship offering: the See No Stranger Learning Hub! Four years in the making, this hub provides the essential tools to practice revolutionary love – to be brave with grief, to harness rage, to listen when it’s hard, and to reimagine. Our curricula, guided inquiries, teaching videos, and meditations are all available for free.
It’s only been a few months, but we are already seeing the learning hub in use across the country — an elementary school in New Jersey, a graduate nursing program in Washington, a high school in Fresno, the hallways of Harvard Divinity School. Educators are making revolutionary love the ethic of their school culture at their universities, high schools, even preschools. And faith leaders, social justice leaders, and civic organizations are adopting the revolutionary love compass.
Now imagine if we could make every school, every home, every organization, every institution a container for multifaith, multiracial community that affirms dignity above all.
This is our long-term vision. We are ready to move into the next phase of work and support these pockets to grow and spread — but we can only do it with your support!
Please join our Beloved Donor Circle to help us scale up our work in 2022 and beyond. When you make a donation, you are funding the lasting revolution.
Scroll down to see just a few of these pockets of revolutionary love!
Yours,
Valarie
High Schools
High school students are reading SEE NO STRANGER in literature, composition, and history courses. In Fresno, California, high school teacher Ginny Sandhu is teaching the book to her students using our Educator’s Guide. She’s giving her students to the tools put revolutionary love into practice as a lifelong learning.
“SEE NO STRANGER is the guide every educator needs to navigate difficult conversations in a modern-day American classroom” according to Sandhu. She calls the book and the toolbox of resources found on the learning hub her “saving grace in the inferno” of teaching in the pandemic era.
Universities
In Los Angeles, Religious Studies professor Dr. Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker has taught the revolutionary love framework in her undergraduate and graduate classes for two years at Loyola Marymount University. The artwork pictured is from one student’s final project. Professor Khalsa-Baker writes:
“Teaching SEE NO STRANGER to 250+ students has been transformative. Each week, we go through a stage of revolutionary love by reading a chapter and engaging in the practices it offers. We reflect and journal about our embodied experiences to access our grief, harness our rage, and find our role in fighting for one another and our common humanity. Students consistently report that this process is life-changing and life-giving.”
K-8 Schools
In New Jersey, faculty and staff read SEE NO STRANGER at a K-8 school. They are teaching their students how to see no stranger and infuse wonder as a shared practice in their community. Educator Ed Lu created this art project with his 2nd grade students.
“It is intended as an invitation to the students and adults in the building to wonder about the individuals in the community and seek to find out something about them that they do not yet know,” says Lu of the project. His hope is that “it gives us practice and opens our eyes to see people we newly encounter not as strangers but as a part of our community.”
Communities
In the Pacific Northwest, communities are coming together in study groups around SEE NO STRANGER all year long. Together they discuss the book and how to put the revolutionary love compass into practice in their lives and institutions.
Community leader Jesica D. leads a virtual group and helped the hybrid group pictured here get started. She calls SEE NO STRANGER “the most important book” she read this year due to the impact it has had on her life, relationships, and perspective on the world. She has been sharing it and the learning hub resources with her community ever since she first read it.
Advocacy Organizations
Advocacy organizations are teaching the revolutionary love compass to activists to equip them with resilience, longevity, and courage. One organization, RAZE, a civic engagement non-profit in rural Arizona, has rooted their organizational culture in revolutionary love. See the practices up on their walls! Their c4 arm also gifted copies of SEE NO STRANGER to local elected officials.
“The practices from the revolutionary love compass guide our civic engagement work,” says Co-Executive Director Natali Bock. It anchors them in “the power and interconnectedness of loving ourselves, loving others, and loving our opponents” and “identifies the action necessary for the practice.”
Industries
Organizations across industries have incorporated the revolutionary love framework into their learning and growth together. CUNA Mutual Group, an insurance company in the midwest, hosted Valarie Kaur for a deep dive into the compass. It ignited introspection on both interpersonal relationships and the impact of companies on communities. Pictured here is Valarie in conversation with Angela Russell, Chief Diversity Officer at CUNA Mutual.
Angela shares that a powerful lesson from this day of learning was that “revolutionary love is not a destination, but a daily and ever evolving practice and journey.” Now, when the C-Suite leadership team gathers, the members are asking themselves questions like “Who are we seeing as stranger or other?” “How do we bring others to the table and ensure the table does not receive them as other?”
Houses of Worship
Faith leaders across the nation are preaching the three core practices of revolutionary love: see no stranger, tend the wound, and breathe and push. Here is Rev. Vicky Elder, delivering a sermon series around SEE NO STRANGER at Unity in Monterey, California, where they study the revolutionary love compass as a congregation.
Join our Beloved Donor Circle.
Here are three ways to give to continue the labor of building beloved community. For every donation, we would like to send you thank-you gifts to enrich your journey.
#1 Are you a Beloved Sustainer?
When you make a monthly donation of any amount, you become a Beloved Sustainer. You sustain our work with your faith in us. We send you a postcard of revolutionary love artwork in the mail and keep you posted with special updates. Plus, the first 50 to sign up are invited to join Valarie in a virtual group tea date! (You can also make a one-time donation of $150 or more).
#2 Are you a Beloved Champion?
When you donate $1K or more, you become a Beloved Champion. You are the wind at our back! To thank you, we send you all of the above, plus a signed copy of See No Stranger, a poster of the Shephard Fairey portrait “Rebirth” signed by Valarie, a copy of Ani DiFranco’s new album “Revolutionary Love,” and an invite to join Valarie in a virtual group tea date.
#3 Are you a Beloved Anchor?
If you or your family can donate $10K or more, you become a Beloved Anchor. Thank you! We send you all of the above, plus the brand-new Revolutionary Love audio training course and an invite to join Valarie in a 1-1 virtual tea date.
Our Gifts to Thank You
As an expression of our gratitude, we’re excited to mail you some of our favorite work from 2021!
Our fundraising campaign ends December 31st. Our thank-you gifts will ship to you by March 2022.