How We Reply to Violence
I once heard a wildly successful tennis player say that we can be motivated by one of two things: fear or love.
Fear is a familiar face these days. Fear for beloveds, ourselves. Fear about who we are to each other. Fear that our country can’t find a path through this. Fear that we aren’t doing enough to meet the moment.
But the thing with fear is that it can be like a pin in a ballon: it deflates some of the best stuff right out of us - the creativity, guts, generosity, grace. It’s hard to feel fearful and powerful at the same time.
"I know the world is bruised and bleeding,” wrote Toni Morrison in her essay No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear, "and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.”
So let’s turn to that other motivator: love. Because love just puts us in a whole other league.
"This will be our reply to violence,” wrote conductor Leonard Bernstein after President Kennedy was assassinated. “To make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. And with each note we will honor the spirit of John Kennedy.”
Love is a rare, a singular response to violence. It’s also a cousin of fear. We only have strong feelings when something we care about is at stake; we don’t get worked up over things that don’t matter to us.
Worry, my Mum used to say, is love looking for an outlet.
The trick, I think, is excavating under the fear and worry to the love beneath: love for those who are being harmed, love for the future our grandkids will inherit, love for this hurting country of ours.
And that love needs an outlet, a place to shine (which makes me think of this terrific Sam Cooke tune; always kicks my mood into a higher gear). A few possibilities on my mind:
Register voters.
Bring soup to beloveds on the frontlines, whatever those frontlines may be. (Here’s a red lentil soup recipe I love.)
If you’re at the library, give a few bucks to anonymously pay someone’s overdue fines.
Thank politicians who are on the right side of history; thank their staff, too. (Details on how to do that here.)
Clean out your closet. Donate what you don’t need to folks who do.
Call your city clerk and ask when the next local election is. Create an email list of folks you know in town. Keep adding to it whenever you meet new folks. Before early voting starts, send out an email to that list with info about what’s on the ballot, where/when to vote.
When in traffic, let one - or more! - cars in.
Send a letter to someone who touched, better, moved you. I got one of these thanking me for something I did years ago and it’s become a cherished bookmark.
Sit in the front row. For artists, performers, presenters, it’s a great gift to have an occupied front row.
Tip a little more than usual.
Order seeds. Planning and then planting a garden are pure acts of hope. (I love this spot for seeds and bare root plants.)
Perhaps you’ve already come up with a whole bunch of other things, too.
Democracy is a form of government. But it’s also a culture. And we are co-authoring democracy daily. Which is to say we can each remind those we live alongside that people can be decent and kind.
The Buddhists say that with great doubt comes great awakening. And no question, we are in a season of great doubt.
We will not fear our way out of doubt. But we might love our way out. And be somewhere really interesting, good, even awakened on the other side.
So my invitation to us, myself included: choose love in this moment. Choose creation over destruction. Connection over isolation. Possibility over cynicism. Doing something today that makes tomorrow a little kinder, a little gentler.
The past is written. But the future is always looking for good authors. We could help write that.