“Revolutionary love is the call of our times.
If you cringe when people say that love is the answer, I do, too. I am not talking about sentimentality or civility or thoughts and prayers. I am talking about love as labor, a conscious embodied practice. Social reformers and spiritual teachers throughout history led entire nonviolent movements anchored in the ethic of love. Time and again, people gave their bodies and breath for one another, not only in the face of fire hoses and firing squads but also in the quieter venues of their daily lives. Black feminists like bell hooks have long envisioned a world where the love ethic is a foundation for all arenas of our society. It’s time to reclaim love as a force for justice..
Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving – a choice we make over and over again. Love as labor can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.
“Revolutionary love” is the choice to labor for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves in order to transform the world around us. It begins with wonder: You are a part of me I do not yet know. It is not a formal code or prescription but an orientation to life that is personal and political, sustained by joy. Loving only ourselves is escapism; loving only our opponents is self-loathing; loving only others is ineffective. All three practices together make love revolutionary, and revolutionary love can only be practiced in community.”
From See No Stranger by Valarie Kaur
Chorlton Unitarians 