Dear Fellow Citizens of Earth;
It’s hard to get up this morning. The
world is a terrifying place. Horrible things are happening. Again, there’s news
of more violence, more shootings, this time against police during a protest in Dallas, Texas. Yesterday we lost Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Last
Friday, Baghdad, Iraq, saw its most deadly bombing in years—possibly decades—and
the death toll there has risen to more than 280 people. June 28 saw a deadly
attack at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, and June 12 saw dozens of fun-loving young
adults gunned down while dancing at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. In the
space of less than 30 days we are reeling from one tragedy to the next. And all
this on top of other humanitarian disasters and emergencies like the refugee crisis, Brexit, the Zika virus outbreak, floods, drought, and wildfires. It would be
easier and certainly understandable to just stay in bed, pull the covers over
our heads, and ignore everything.
But we can’t. At the very least, we’ll
have to get up to eat and go to the bathroom, and when we do we’ll all be faced
with the same question: How do I respond?
And here’s my crazy suggestion; I
suggest we all respond with love.
I get it; love is terrifying. In
order to love someone in any capacity you have to make yourself vulnerable. You
have to open yourself up to the possibility of hurt and betrayal. You have to
surrender control and allow someone else into your life. This is true of all
forms of love, not just romantic love. And it’s scary and hard enough to love a
friend; it’s exponentially more terrifying and difficult to love an enemy, not
only because we loathe our enemies and see all the bad things about them, but
because in choosing to love an enemy we have to make ourselves vulnerable to
that enemy which requires recognizing that we
are also their enemy. So yes,
choosing love is scary, but we’ve seen the alternative and it is far worse.
Now choosing love doesn’t mean you
have to get rid of your righteous indignation. What has happened in the world
over the past month is wrong and the victims and their families all deserve
justice. But we can have justice while also having love. We can raise our
voices together and scream “No more!” We can march and we can protest and we
can act all within the realm of love. Loving one group doesn’t automatically mean
you hate another group. On the contrary, love drives out hate, all hate. We can
protest police brutality because we love our brothers and sisters in the black
community and wish to end the horrid social injustices they have faced for far
too long, but also because we love our brothers and sisters in the police community
and don’t want to see an entire population vilified by the actions of the few. We
can protest ISIS while loving Muslims; we can protest corrupt government while
loving our congress-people. We can live in this seeming duality because
ultimately the way to protest the killing of people is NOT to kill more people;
it is to love our enemies. And loving your enemies will leave a bitter taste in
your mouth, but it won’t leave blood on your hands.
So please, for all our sakes, let’s
put down our swords. Let’s lay down our guns. Let’s set aside our hate and
vengeance. Let’s hold each other accountable and lift each other up. Let’s
fight injustice where we see it, and choose love. It doesn’t have to be
perfect, and probably won’t be, but let’s at least start with looking at each
other and seeing our common humanity.
Sincerely, Lynnea
