Living by a love ethic now
It's the only solution that might save us
Hi y’all. Hope you’re doing ok. Let’s take a deep breath. Try to drop your shoulders and relax your belly and take another deep breath if you want. Since we’re at it, we could take a few more slow breaths since it’s so good for our nervous systems. Sigh. Hello. It’s been a minute. :)
About a month ago, I was grading in a coffee shop a few blocks from home. I over heard one 20 something guy ask another (presuming age and gender), what are you reading? He said, “All about love by bell hooks.” If I didn’t need to rush off, I would have stopped to applaud him and recommend it to his friend and tell him about how it is required reading in my love class. In fact, someone recently asked me what’s one book I think is required reading for everyone. And this was the book I recommended. While I could go on and on about the brilliance and timelessness of this book, one of the most profound teachings is her discussion of a love ethic. I’ve written about this before and even shared it my 2023 TEDx talk, but essentially the message is that we must prioritize love in our lives in all ways—personal, community, family, and world. Love is the center point for which we make decisions. Love guides us. Not fear. Not greed. Not selfishness. Not ignorance. Not hate or phobias or isms or any of the things we’ve let divide us. It’s love. Over and over and over again. But love is not some lofty, mushy, feel-good emotion that leaves us powerless. Not even close. If we are to really love—we have to show up and do something.
It reminds me of why I left the church in my late 20s. I was in grad school at Boston College getting my degree in Psych. I found a neighborhood church that was mashup of Methodists (partially how I was raised), UCC, and American Baptist. The preachers were women. It was open and affirming, and I was into it. I taught Sunday school, youth group, and eventually coordinated the children/youth education programs. There was lots of talks about social justice and a clear understanding that Jesus was a radical peacemaker. We had bookclubs, potlucks, social groups, and bible studies. All the usual stuff church is great at—community and connection. But one thing was really missing for me. Action. We talked about love being the center point of Jesus’ teachings, and yet it only took us so far. The Christian Right was organized, political, and the Christian Left seemed to be largely disorganized and unmotivated toward the real action I was looking for. I remember once saying, “if Jesus were alive he’d burn this place down.”
And I know some of you might want to write me off for saying that but let me give you some context. When it came to church, I was pretty devoted. I gave sermons when I was in high school and throughout college. I thought I was going to be a pastor. I was hella churchy at one point. I believed in the vision of heaven on earth, and I saw it as attainable if we took our cues from Jesus.
So here’s why I said Jesus would burn the church down—because a lot of the time we were so busy talking and talking and trying to maintain a building or figure out how to do this programming inside that we weren’t actually doing much outside, and it was pissing me off. It didn’t feel right to sit inside the pews on a cold Sunday and feel warm and sing when real shit was happening outside that we talked a lot about but did little to address in actionable ways. It didn’t feel right that others were harmful making decisions in Christianity’s name and spouting moral superiority while we sat by, shook our heads, and rolled our eyes. Maybe I was missing something—but I couldn’t see the action taking place in a way that felt like what Jesus would do or how he would want us to respond to these times. I remember reading about a Jesus that fed hungry, comforted the suffering, and offered refuge to the outcasts. Jesus pushed back against the establishment. He put his neck on the line for such a simple message that he embodied —love your neighbor as yourself. Feed the hungry, comfort the suffering, offer refuge to the sick, be the peacemaker.
Fast forward and I discover bell hooks quote that “schools of love do not exist.” And she’s right. While my class is but one little offering towards this—it is nowhere near enough. We know many people do not learn how to love at home. If they did, this world would look very different. And while the churches that I sat in for two decades taught about love, they also lacked tangible, sustainable, and organized action around how to love.
So here we are. LA is on fire. Gaza is on fire. There are genocides happening in Gaza, Sudan, and the Congo. The people of Appalachia are still deeply struggling after the last Hurricane and there is far more than we even know unfolding in each others’ lives. We have ignored love for far too long. We have used and abused Mother Earth. We have hated and killed our neighbors here in the U.S. and in so many places on this planet. We have lived with hate, greed, selfishness, ignorance, and apathy.
So what now? One of the most hopeful and loving actions that I’ve seen emerge both from Gaza and LA is mutual aid. Mutual aid is living by a love ethic and if it matters to you, I think it is one answer to WWJD in these times. Mutual aid provides people the things they need now without a middle person or organization taking anything off the top or adding restrictions to who can get what. Mutual aid is what the government should be doing but isn’t. Mutual aid is being a loving and helpful neighbor to those a few steps, a few hours, or a few plane rides away from us. Mutual aid is giving things and money directly to people who need it because they lost everything or because they are hungry or out of work or their house was bombed or burnt down. Mutual aid is an act of love! And we can all participate.
I didn’t start this post thinking I was going to write about church and what faith communities can be doing. But I guess it is a plea for all hands to truly be on deck. Please believe I don’t really want churches to be burned down, yet, I do want them to be places where people can learn how to love through sustainable, organized action. Churches and other religious spaces can be places where mutual aid donations are housed and facilitated. But it’s not just about mutual aid. We need people to bear witness to the suffering that we’ve collectively created/enabled. We need more people to get mobilized. We need the message of love—wherever it is taught— to become not just love your neighbor in theory (or in your heart or prayers), but in real tangible daily action.
As we prepare for another Trump presidency, we know love is the furthest value from Trump’s agenda. He thrives on division, violence, and chaos. We do not need to follow suit, even if y’all voted for this man.
And this is where my departure from Christianity taught me something that I didn’t get in churches, but instead learned from Buddhist communities. We are ONE. What happens way over there, impacts us way over here. Your suffering is also my suffering.
We have been given MULTIPLE chances to learn this very simple lesson over and again. Some folks just can’t look at it all. They don’t want to feel anything other than their day to day stuff and they just bury their head in the sand. I don’t know what to do with those folks because they feel out of reach. Yet many of us are feeling deeply when we see this devastation unfold for our neighbors near and far. As this is why we need, now more than ever, folks to wake up from their apathy and learn how to love and live by a love ethic. Love is action. It requires movement. And as we continue to face the impacts of disaster capitalism, then we are going to need each other, now more than ever. There will undoubtedly be hard times ahead—and everything good that will come of it will be our conscious choice, again and again to love our neighbors as ourselves.
While Trump and his billionaire sociopathic tech bros try to control us more in order to get richer, I hope that your daily practice includes an unwavering commitment to love. Nothing short will get us through this.
How can you live by a love ethic now? Do something! Anything! These are great starting places….
Donate to mutual aid now. In LA, Gaza, Appalachia, and anywhere else folks need it. Here are some links to get you going:
Link for Mutual Aid in Gaza. The need is endless as we *finally* after nearly 500 days of a horrific genocide and unimaginable trauma have a ceasefire deal.
Here’s an idea for mutual aid: Donate whatever you can to a family or two and then elevate that person/family’s story on your SM. Ask your (faith) community, schools, PTAs, book clubs, pickleball leagues, or whomever you connect with regularly to join forces to support an individual or family together. Don’t just do this once, but choose to do it every couple or few months. Sustained loving action is key here because the process of rebuilding/recovery will not happen overnight.
Join a climate action group in your community or as close to your community as possible. It’s time. Even if you’ve never done anything like this before (me neither!), we really do need all hands on deck. I’m new to this work and have found a couple resources for you to search by state, but if you know of something in your community, leave a comment.
https://www.climaterealityproject.org/us-chapters
https://350.org/get-involved/?r=US&c=NA
Mutual aid and climate action are essential but not the only starting places. Start local. Get to know your neighbors. Collaborate together. I love this little yet very specific guide by Earthlings Undone on how we can creative collective care without relying on systems to do it. Check it out!
Keep LOVE at the forefront of your efforts, including love for yourself. If you’re having a hard time, honor it. “It’s SANE for my body to care” (thanks for this brilliance Abigail Bengson).