Beloveds:
Today I watch the inauguration from Los Angeles, on the thirteenth day of an inferno caused by the climate crisis. I can literally taste the ash in my mouth. Where I am, the air is unsafe to breathe. As I walked in my neighborhood with an N95 mask, I thought:
The air will be unsafe to breathe for all of us for the next four years. We will all be breathing in hate and vitriol, cruelty and chaos, every day. How do we protect our lungs? How do we protect our hearts? With so much hate in the air, how do we find the strength to love?
Dr. King wrote a book called Strength to Love. In it, he called on us to harness the radical, revolutionary power of love to rebirth the world. On MLK Day, we remember what our wisest ancestors taught us: Revolutionary Love is the choice to see no stranger, to leave no one outside our circle of care. Now more than ever, Revolutionary Love is the call of our times.
So here is my invitation to you:
Today, as we watch the next president make an oath to protect the Constitution — a man whose ideas and actions directly threaten the Constitution, the safety of our peoples, and the future of our planet — let us make our own oath.
Let us vow to protect our hearts. Let us protect our strength to love — to refuse to go numb to suffering, to alchemize pain into energy and action, to fight for our humanity. One act of love at time. Let us pull each other out of rubble. Let us listen when it’s hard. Let us refuse to hate. Let us practice the world we want in the space between us — with every choice, every word, every encounter, every breath. Let us make the meal, pour the tea, lay the brick, plant the tree. Let us sleep and dream. Let us dream of the world we are laboring for and trust in our role in the labor.
Today I vow to stay in the long labor with you. Even with ash in my mouth, I vow to breathe and push with you — so that seven generations from now, they will remember how we labored through the dark with a love so bright, it birthed a world of sweetness and connection, from the soil to the stars.
Imagine thousands of us making our vows together. It is our own People’s Inauguration. Today we inaugurate our dignity and courage, our belonging and joy. Today we inaugurate love. Love will make us brave.
What will you vow today?
Yours in the long labor,
Valarie