Acts of Love
I can't count the times I've begun a newsletter or a Moment of Connection with something like “it's been such an intense time” or “there are so many challenges in our world” or something similar. I suppose it's a bit of a measure of our times that I'd even notice such a trend. We are, in fact, living in what seems to me to be some really intense times with some challenges most of us have never faced before. In my 70-odd years, I've never seen so many acts of overt hatred and disrespect.
It's tempting to meet hatred with hatred, disrespect with disrespect - and call it a strategy for change. Actually though, I think it's just the easiest and least mindful reaction…and one that is prone to elicit even more hatred and disrespect. I can certainly own that when I see an act of hate - even one in response to hate, I'm likely to rush to judgment. It's no strategy, it's just pure reactivity to what I don't like. And alas, it does nothing to improve the course of events. Regardless of the origin, hate begets hate, disrespect begets disrespect, judgment begets judgment.
But the good news is that, likewise, acceptance begets acceptance, respect begets respect, and love begets love.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only Light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
“Only love can do that.” So maybe what's called for is a strategy toward love. Maybe rather than reaction or even response, what's needed are proactive, prophylactic, preemptive acts of love. I'm thinking of conscious, deliberate, thoughtful acts of love - not only in response to hatred but even moreso as an ongoing practice in daily life. I'm inspired by these words of Thich Nhat Hahn:
“Our practice is to live our daily life in such a way that every moment, every act becomes an act of love.”
Imagine if we practiced turning the most ordinary moments of our lives into acts of love - whether moments shared with others, or moments alone. What if our willingness to love became so strong that there'd be no place for darkness to get a toe-hold?
If you'd like to try that out with me, I've made a short visual meditation to support you - perhaps a way to begin or end your day focusing your intention to make every act become an act of love. If you want to up the ante, you could set yourself a daily time to focus, and do it every day for a week or a month. Or you might pick a particular act that you'd like to transform into an act of love. The key,I think, is to just do something repetitively that increases your experience of proactive acts of love. Click on the image below to get started.
If you try it (and I hope you will), please let me know how it goes for you. And feel free to share this approach with others.
