"I don’t want your love and light if you’re not also doing the work to make the world we live in more survivable for me and those less vulnerable."  -- Rachel Cargle

"Another of the major strengths of the nonviolent weapon is its strange power to transform and transmute the individuals who subordinate themselves to its disciplines, investing them with a cause that is larger than themselves. They become, for the first time, somebody, and they have, for the first time, the courage to be free."  —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Getting Comfortable with our Own Aging

"Caring is first a way to our own aging self, where we can find the healing powers for all those who share in the human condition. No guest will ever feel welcome when the host is not at home in his own house. No old man or woman will ever feel free to reveal his or her hidden anxieties or deeper desires when they only trigger off uneasy feelings in those who are trying to listen. It is no secret that many of our suggestions, advice, admonitions, and good words are often offered in order to keep distance rather than allow closeness. When we are primarily concerned with giving old people something to do, offering them entertainment and distractions, we might avoid the painful realization that most people do not want to be distracted but heard, not entertained but sustained."  --Henri Nouwen

"One of the reasons we're destroying the planet is that it has lost its sacred dimension for us. The planet as given to us by science is a physical reality essentially meaningless in itself. It's a resource for our physical activity."  —Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth

"An Albanian man who had suffered the unimaginable, seemed to have come to a different place within himself than the others. He was more tranquil, both steady and focused. When the healthcare professional asked him how he had arrived at such an emotionally healthy place with all the horrible tragedy around him he said: 'I asked myself one question over and over again, and one question only: How can I prevent this from happening to my own children?'"   --Christine Hibbard

Life is a Gift to be Shared

"What then is care? The word care finds its origin in the word kara, which means “to lament, to mourn, to participate in suffering, to share in pain.” To care is to cry out with those who are ill, confused, lonely, isolated, and forgotten, and to recognize their pains in our own heart. To care is to enter into the world of those who are only touched by hostile hands, to listen attentively to those whose words are only heard by greedy ears, and to speak gently with those who are used to harsh orders and impatient requests. To care is to be present to those who suffer and to stay present even when nothing can be done to change their situation. To care is to be compassionate and so to form a community of people honestly facing the painful reality of our finite existence. To care is the most human gesture, in which the courageous confession of our common brokenness does not lead to paralysis but to community. When the humble confession of our basic human brokenness forms the ground from which all skillful healing comes forth, then cure can be welcomed not as a property to be claimed, but as a gift to be shared in gratitude."  ---Henri Nouwen

Your Suffering is my Suffering

"Compassion means to become close to the one who suffers. But we can come close to another person only when we are willing to become vulnerable ourselves. A compassionate person says: “I am your brother; I am your sister; I am human, fragile, and mortal, just like you. I am not scandalized by your tears, nor afraid of your pain. I, too, have wept. I, too, have felt pain.” We can be with the other only when the other ceases to be “other” and becomes like us.

"This, perhaps, is the main reason that we sometimes find it easier to show pity than compassion. The suffering person calls us to become aware of our own suffering. How can I respond to someone’s loneliness unless I am in touch with my own experience of loneliness? How can I be close to handicapped people when I refuse to acknowledge my own handicaps? How can I be with the poor when I am unwilling to confess my own poverty?"  --Henri Nouwen

Acknowledging Our Own Mortality

"To care for the elderly means then that we allow the elderly to make us poor by inviting us to give up the illusion that we created our own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from us. This poverty, which is an inner detachment, can make us free to receive the old stranger into our lives and make that person into a most intimate friend.

"When care has made us poor by detaching us from the illusion of immortality, we can really become present to the elderly. We can then listen to what they say without worrying about how we can answer. We can pay attention to what they have to offer without being concerned about what we can give. We can see what they are in themselves without wondering what we can be for them. When we have emptied ourselves of false occupations and preoccupations, we can offer free space to old strangers, where not only bread and wine but also the story of life can be shared."  --Henri Nouwen

""You could describe activism as having two primary strains: the attempt to change something problematic outside itself, and the attempt to build something better—though the two strains are irrevocably and necessarily intertangled."  —Rebecca Solnit

"When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares."  --Henri Nouwen

"When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream; when we are dreaming with others it is the beginning of a new reality."  -- Dom Helder Camara

"Morally it makes no difference whether a person is killed in war or condemned to starve by the indifference of others."  —Willy Brandt

Cure Without Care

"Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to change them as soon as possible. But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from taking shape. Cure without care makes us preoccupied with quick changes, impatient and unwilling to share each other’s burden. And so cure can often become offending instead of liberating."

--Henri Nouwen

"For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?"  —bell hooks

"If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself."

-- Zanele Muholi

Inviting Closeness with the Other

"To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers that prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed, too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed, too. And when others give life, I could have done the same. Then we experience that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the guard who pesters, to the young man who plays as if life has no end, and to the old man who stopped playing out of fear for death.

"By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community."  --Henri Nouwen

"I have brought a new life into this world. And it is my duty... to guide her through these difficult steps to maturity. To support her as she learns. To prepare her to be a contributing member of society. No one can relieve me from that obligation. And I cannot ignore it. I am… her father.”  --Data

"We are witnessing the rise of a revolutionary movement of political civil disobedience with the power to reimagine the tragedy that is race in America. To witness so many young people find their voices and inhabit their power is truly invigorating. Amidst so many platitudes about apathy and disenfranchisement, the present civil disobedience sweeping across the United States is a profound political engagement. There is a real possibility for the emergence of a revolution that would transform our world, not by tearing it down, but by returning it to its never-realized fundamental principles. That promise persists, so long as we recall that the possibility of revolution comes not from violence but from the power of the people."

--Roger Berkowitz

https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-behind-the-revolution-2020-06-04

"Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"  --Martin Luther King, Jr.

"No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger than its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise."  --Marian Anderson

"Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning to just deal with. But if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of colour to deal with it.

"It’s up to all of us – Black, white, everyone – no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. It ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets." 

 --Michelle Obama

"One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings."  --Franklin Thomas

"For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity, and importance of political and social rights."  

-- B. R. Ambedkar

"Indeed our survival and liberation depend upon our recognition of the truth when it is spoken and lived by the people. If we cannot recognize the truth, then it cannot liberate us from untruth. To know the truth is to appropriate it, for it is not mainly reflection and theory. Truth is divine action entering our lives and creating the human action of liberation."  -- James Cone

"The United States is breaking, painfully, visibly but not irreparably. The cracks have always been there for us to study. Perhaps now we can create the place that holds us all."  -- Ginna Green

"When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not advice givers, warners, or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to face the realities of life. . . . Those who do not run away from our pains but touch them with compassion bring healing and new strength. The paradox indeed is that the beginning of healing is in the solidarity with the pain. In our solution-oriented society it is more important than ever to realize that wanting to alleviate pain without sharing it is like wanting to save a child from a burning house without the risk of being hurt. It is in solitude that this compassionate solidarity takes its shape."  --Henri Nouwen

"The Bible as a talisman has real political power. But we believe the words inside the book are more powerful. If we unite across lines of race, creed and culture to stand together on the moral vision of love, justice and truth that was proclaimed by Jesus and the prophets, we have the capacity to reclaim the heart of this democracy and work together for a more perfect union. 

"To do that, we need to read the Bible and live it, not wave it for the cameras."

--William J. Barber II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove 

Trump’s use of the Bible was obscene. He should try reading the words inside it. [Opinion]

The Washington Post

June 2, 2020 at 2:34 p.m. MDT

"If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being, and who can rest in the vitality of that larger body."  —Joanna Macy

"Love is a combination of six ingredients: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust. I found that a lot of people just felt really confused about what love is, so I said, here, take these six ingredients and as you go about your life, you can ask: the action I'm taking, does it have these six ingredients?"  --bell hooks

"Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant [people], we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. . . .

"Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken."  --Henri Nouwen

"Fundamentally human beings are the same. Imagine being lost in some remote place and suddenly seeing someone coming towards you over the horizon. You wouldn't care about their race, nationality or religious faith, you'd be filled with the joy of encountering another human being."  --Dalai Lama

"Looking behind I am filled with gratitude. Looking forward I am filled with vision. Looking upwards I am filled with strength. Looking within I discover peace."

—Maria Yracébûrû, Prayers and Meditations of the Quero Apache

"Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it."  --Ella Baker

"Compassion lies at the heart of our prayer for our fellow human beings. When I pray for the world, I become the world; when I pray for the endless needs of the millions, my soul expands and wants to embrace them all and bring them into the presence of God. But in the midst of that experience I realize that compassion is not mine but God’s gift to me. I cannot embrace the world, but God can. I cannot pray, but God can pray in me. When God became as we are, that is, when God allowed all of us to enter into his intimate life, it became possible for us to share in his infinite compassion.

"In praying for others, I lose myself and become the other, only to be found by the divine love that holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace."  --Henri Nouwen

"For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it."  --Eleanor Roosevelt

"Peace requires something far more difficult than revenge or merely turning the other cheek; it requires empathizing with the fears and unmet needs that provide the impetus for people to attack each other. Being aware of those feelings and needs, people lose their desires to attack back because they see the human ignorance leading to those attacks. Instead, their goal becomes providing the empathic connection and education that will enable them to transcend their violence and engage in cooperative relationships."  ---Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph. D.

"Look life in the eye and love it back."  —Barbara Kingsolver

There is an old adage that says "When people show you who they are, believe them."

"Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us. Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness by how we look, by what we have, and by what we can accomplish. We become preoccupied with “making it” in this life, and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality. We need to hear the message announced and the message emboldened over and over again. Only then do we find the courage to claim it and live from it."

--Henri Nouwen

"Sympathy feels bad about a situation. Solidarity joins in as a co-laborer to change the situation. Sympathy calls for love without risk. Solidarity calls for risk as love. Sympathy centers the comfort and timetable of those who benefit from a system of difference. Solidarity calls for a revolution of value in a system in which we build a loving and just common life together."  -- Dante Stewart

"It is the destruction of the world

in our own lives that drives us

half insane, and more than half.

To destroy that which we were given

in trust: how will we bear it?"  —Wendell Berry

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."  —Rainer Maria Rilke

“You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”  --Maya Angelou 

"Love is profoundly political. Our deepest revolution will come when we understand this truth."  

-- bell hooks 

"I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"  —Mary Oliver

"Real radicalism implores us to tell the whole ugly truth, even when it is inconvenient. To own the hurt and the pain. To own our ****, too. To think about it systemically and collectively, but never to diminish the import of the trauma."  -- Brittney Cooper

"There is a crack in everything, but that’s how the light gets in!"  --Leonard Cohen

I have siblings, a fraternity brother, and friends that are law enforcement officers. They possess deep levels of integrity, courage, and selflessness that make them my heroes. I know they would never use force excessive enough to place an offender in a life threatening situation. I would put my life in their hands. I would give my life for theirs. So what am I getting at?

Law enforcement in the United States is not being held accountable and is rife with racism. Black Lives Matter seeks systemic change in policing. There are too many officers that have disgraced the badges they wear and should be in prisons. But don’t forget those that hold the words “To Serve and Protect” sacred. They are people like you and me--with loved ones, living their lives, and trying to be the best they can be, 

[Just a note. Don’t fall for # ACAB. The vast majority of people using this hashtag are white supremacists trying to defame the BLM Movement. They are weak and vile cowards hoping to turn peace into hate.]

"If you’re more concerned about the responses of black rage than you are about a system that justifies and rewards black death, you don’t love black people — you just love when they stay in their place." 

-- Dante Stewart

"Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions."  

- Amílcar Cabral

"It is my conviction that if we are neutral in situations of injustice, we have chosen the side of the oppressor."  —Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe."  -- Frantz Fanon

 "The opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice."  --Bryan Stevenson 

"When we speak about celebration we tend rather easily to bring to mind happy, pleasant, gay festivities in which we can forget for a while the hardships of life and immerse ourselves in an atmosphere of music, dance, drinks, laughter, and a lot of cozy small talk. But celebration in the Christian sense has very little to do with this. Celebration is only possible through the deep realization that life and death are never found completely separate. Celebration can only really come about where fear and love, joy and sorrow, tears and smiles can exist together. Celebration is the acceptance of life in a constantly increasing awareness of its preciousness. And life is precious not only because it can be seen, touched, and tasted, but also because it will be gone one day. When we celebrate a wedding, we celebrate a union as well as a departure; when we celebrate death we celebrate lost friendship as well as gained liberty. There can be tears after weddings and smiles after funerals. We can indeed make our sorrows, just as much as our joys, a part of our celebration of life in the deep reality that life and death are not opponents but do, in fact, kiss each other at every moment of our existence.'  --Henri Nouwen

"One of the key words Gandhi used in expressing the meaning of nonviolence was ahimsa, literally ‘non-harm,’ the refusal to hurt others. It's the rock bottom of nonviolence. A second key word was satyagraha (a combination of the words for ‘truth’ and ‘holding firmly’) sometimes called ‘truth force,’ holding on to what is true and good, striving to bring about more humane conditions for people and society. King called it ‘soul force.’"  —Dr. Gerard Vanderhaar

"The luminous part of you that exists beyond personality—your soul, if you will—is as bright and shining as any that has ever been . . . clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place. Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly." 
—George Saunders

"I exist as I am, that is enough.
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest tome,
and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today
or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now,
or with equal cheerfulness,
I can wait."

—Walt Whitman

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground…. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle.”  --Frederick Douglass

"If you live in this system of white supremacy, you are either fighting the system or you are complicit. There is no neutrality to be had towards systems of injustice, it is not something you can just opt out of."  -- Ijeoma Oluo

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential, temporary. Impossible is nothing.”  --Muhammad Ali

"In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations. . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .), the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world."  —Walter Wink