The Language of Love

As I have been watching the events and occurrences of this year, I find myself struggling to find the right balance. I feel a yearning to act and to speak out, but I also feel apprehensive at times - like I’m not sure what to say. In reflecting on the volatility of our country and the fragility of life, many unanswered questions come to mind: What’s the right thing to do moving forward? How do we repair wrongs of the past? How do we speak with those with whom there’s seemingly little or no common ground?

What is the right language for this moment?

My late Father taught me that what’s most important isn’t my opinion, what my friends think of me, how I vote, or even how I pray - What matters most is how I love. In short, the “language” I use will define the path I am on and the actions I take.

Though we all have the capacity to speak and demonstrate it, love is a language that is not always our primary expression. Ego, pride, anger, judgment, and regret are voices that sometimes drown out our native tongue.

The truth is no matter what our differences, origins, or opinions, we all have the ability to communicate in a common language of grace, acceptance, and empathy. This language called love reminds me of a powerful story I recall from 20 years ago involving one of my childhood idols, Bono.

As arguably the biggest rock star in the world back in 2001, “Bono” (Paul David Hewson of U2 fame) sat down to lunch with an unabashed racist and narrow-minded bigot.

At that time, there was a global pandemic that was decimating the continent of Africa. As we know by now, pandemics know no borders, but AIDS by the year 2000 was largely controlled, treatable, and preventable in wealthy and developed nations. In poverty stricken Africa however, AIDS was still a death sentence for millions.

Feeling that something drastic needed to be done, Bono decided to throw the full weight of his fame and influence behind the issue. He sought bipartisan support and funding to combat the pandemic. Standing in his way was Republican Senator Jesse Helms.

According to the Forbes article “I will follow”, there was no greater opponent of AIDS funding at that time than Senator Helms. Helms, a conservative evangelical, had harshly spoken out against the LGBT community calling them “perverts” and “weak, morally sick wretches.” He referred to AIDS as “a gay disease.” I won’t even mention his deplorable and toxic views on race.

In response, did Bono galvanize his global base of millions of fans and try to shame Senator Helms out of office? Did he call Helms out as the racist bigot he was? Did he belittle the religious right? Did he encourage his followers to show up at state capitals to protest with guns?

Not exactly. Instead of using his platform to shout back at Helms, Bono invited him to lunch. He then tirelessly met with evangelical leaders and listened to them. He cited Bible versus about poverty and respectfully spoke their language. In learning how to work with his adversaries, Bono commented: “When you have a person who may appear rigidly opposed to something, look for ways to widen the aperture of their narrow idealistic view.”

Elaborating on his response, Bono continued: “I've learned to speak in a lot of tongues, and I can live with the bellicose language of some fervent, fire-breathing Christians...It's not my language, but actually, I don't mind how people come to this, to the front line on this. People have different motivations. I surprise myself [about] how much I've learned from conservatives, not coming from that vein, even conservative Christians whose beliefs I don't share.”

The rest is, as they say, history. Senator Helms became a staunch and vocal supporter of AIDS funding and research. He even became a fan of U2. With global support, Africa in turn has made incredible strides in the fight against AIDS.

Bono’s selfless actions led to significant progress on the global AIDS crisis. But did his efforts also excuse Helm’s blatantly racist and bigoted past? What about justice and punishment? What about being right? After all, while Martin Luther King Jr. preached that, “Only love” (can drive out hate) he also said, “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.”

How and when to speak up and out are fair questions, especially in our current political climate. But as Dr. King stated and as Bono demonstrated in his work fighting the AIDS pandemic, to make real progress and effect lasting change, sometimes you have to meet people where they are at - even if those people are reprehensible in your view.

Still, it’s tempting to see being right as the most important thing. It’s no secret that we all love to be right. We even receive a rush of dopamine when we read something that mirrors our own opinion. Certainly, it’s natural to surround yourself with others that share your beliefs. It’s undoubtedly courageous to speak out and stand for justice.

But only talking to like-minded individuals that share your opinion simply creates an echo chamber, not progress. And drawing a line in the sand isn’t necessarily the same as getting something done.

More than anything right now, we need to speak the language of love. Narrow-mindedness, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness, and aren’t working. While silence certainly isn’t the answer, neither is hatefully shouting back. If your enemy is filled with judgment and hate, let it be their hate. Contempt, racism, injustice, and even apathy will die with those that refuse to let these qualities go. But only love can actually heal these conditions and make rights out of wrongs. Hate simply cannot survive in the face of love.

Look, I don’t know much about the science of global pandemics. I don’t what it’s like to be the victim of senseless racism or blatant discrimination. I can’t comprehend what it’s like to carry the burden of hundreds of years of oppression and persecution. I don’t have the answers to our political dysfunction and I certainly don’t know much about being a rock star or a US senator. But I do know that no matter what the situation is, my job is to listen with humility, stand up for justice, and speak with the language of love. I don’t have all of the answers, but I do know that love is the answer.

The Middle Children of History

 “We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war…our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact.”  ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club 

By now it’s not news to you that we have an opioid epidemic that kills more Americans each year than died during the entire duration of the Vietnam War. It’s not news that obesity has become a pandemic across our nation killing an estimated 300,000 people annually. It’s not news that depression and suicide are at all time highs in our country with some 45,000 people taking their own lives each year. It’s not news to you that despite living in an age of unprecedented technological advances, we actually have declining life expectancy in our nation. We are increasingly addicted to our food, our phones, our booze and our prescription drugs. We even ‘binge’ watch our television. But none of that is news.

Our collective anxiety, addiction, escapism, and desperation is no longer newsworthy, for the vast majority of us are personally battling these afflictions on some level whether individually or through our circle of loved ones. What is newsworthy is that despite fighting the war on drugs, war on fat, and war on terror, none of these societal conflicts are helping us live longer happier lives. The big news story isn’t the what, but the why.

So just why are we depressed, addicted, overweight and unhappy? After all, we live in the richest nation on earth at the most prosperous time in history. Technology makes our lives so efficient that few of us have to actually labor strenuously to find food, shelter or even entertainment. The answer is simple, and yet complex. We feel separate from each other and live in polarizing times because we are separate from ourselves. We are out of alignment.   

If you watch the news and pay attention to those in power politically and economically, the answers to our dilemmas come in convenient packages with straight forward answers - Obesity will be solved by burning calories, jobs and personal safety will be protected by building walls, drug addiction will be solved by locking up drug dealers and seizing the supply of illegal drugs. But deep down, no matter where you lie on the political and philosophical spectrum, we all know this is a lie. None of these short-sided ‘answers’ really address the why’s behind the what.

The proof is in the pudding. Despite our protectionist tendencies and efforts to save our jobs, both machines and other countries continue to take our jobs at an alarming pace. Despite a decades-long war on drugs focusing on locking up drug dealers and seizing drugs, this fight has had zero impact on drug consumption and addiction. Despite more and more joining gyms fueling the fitness industry’s unprecedented double-digit growth for the past 30-years, the burning calories approach has had no impact on the amount of overweight and obese Americans. These are failed approaches because they don’t address the underlying causes of our ailments.

We need to stop addressing the ‘what’ and start tackling the ‘why’ behind these issues. The reason we are overweight, unhappy and depressed is because many of us lack purpose, meaning and a feeling of true fulfillment in our lives. Great meals, engrossing entertainment and fine wine won’t solve our emptiness. Ironically, our escapism only exacerbates our pain. No matter how fast we run on the treadmill of life, the belt keeps going and at some point we have to get off and face the pain, guilt and shame of our own emptiness.

Facing the why means waging a “spiritual war” as Chuck Palahniuk states. Or as Gandhi famously said, “each one of us has to find his peace from within.” But many aren’t willing to wage that war. We’re too distracted and comfortable to be bothered. We’re too busy complaining about the system being broken that we don’t actually organize and mobilize to find real solutions. It’s much easier to blame the left if you’re on the right (or vice versa), to blame the drug dealers if you’re a drug user and to blame the calories if you’re overweight. These simplistic narratives have proven to be failed approaches and continue to do nothing to advance our cause as a society.

More than 150 years ago, Henry David Thoreau prophesized this dynamic. His haunting quote about despair and its correlation to amusement also contains the remedy (wisdom). “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation…A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

The time has come to reject the notions of addiction and corruption and break out of our quiet lives of desperation. As “middle children of history,” our fight isn’t a black and white one like the wars and moral battles of our grandparents and great grandparents. Addiction, depression and even political gridlock aren’t solved with walls, diet plans and simply choosing the lesser of two evils. They are solved in the stillness of our hearts, in selfless community-driven efforts and in relationship with the Divine.

We must wage new wars in fighting the powerful and corrupt while at the same time holding ourselves to the same level of accountability. We must stand up to monopolies of thought and monopolies of commerce and political power. We must fight against systemic injustices like fake food and aggressive marketing campaigns that promote massive consumption and in turn, addiction.

The answers in these seemingly hopeless times will only present themselves if we are first willing to address the why’s behind the what. Waging such a spiritual war is not about choosing sides, but about finding a ‘third’ way and through the process of “kenosis” or self-emptying. It is only when we empty our lives that we can be truly receptive to God’s will. It is only through emptiness that we can find wholeness. It’s only by finding ourselves individually that we can band together and truly forge a path for peace collectively.

Moral Courage

"Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately."  - Elie Wiesel

My mom used to read to me at night…until I was in high school! She read children’s books to me when I was little, sports books when I was in grade school, and as I matured, she read biographies and history. One theme was consistent in the books she chose – moral courage. Moral courage is defined as the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences.

I’m not sure if it was Mom’s intention to instill the virtues of being some sort of moral crusader, but those books made a big impression on me. My main take away from those readings on the likenesses of individuals like Anne Frank, Malcolm X, or Jackie Robinson is that the true mark of success isn’t defined by what assets you have, your resume, or even how long you live, but by your willingness to stand for what you believe in.

How many of us are willing to take such stands? How many of us are willing to truly stand up - to our employer, our church, our government and risk persecution, our job, and even our freedom? To many, the comforts of modern life, validation on social media, and the distractions of technology hold sway over urgent and pressing systemic problems. We are too busy being distracted and seeking comfort to be burdened by life’s inconvenient truths.

Moral courage is seemingly in short supply these days although there are glimmers of hope if you look closely enough. Ishrad Manji is the founder of the ‘Moral Courage Project’’ at the University of Southern California where she teaches students to “do the right thing in the face of four years.” Manji is a Muslim who has openly stood up for the rights of women and minorities calling for reform in her faith in her bestselling book, The Trouble with Islam Today.

A recent example of moral courage is also former NFL player Ed Cunningham quitting his lucrative job as a television football analyst because he believes that football has negative long-term health ramifications. He felt could “no longer be in that cheerleader’s spot” in promoting a game he believes in hazardous to your health. In announcing his decision Cunningham added “I just don’t think the game is safe for the brain. To me, it’s unacceptable.”

The point isn’t whether people like Manji and Cunningham are right. Personally, I like football and though the studies on football appear to be fairly damning, I have no idea if the science is absolute or conclusive with regard to long-term brain damage and its correlation to football. The point is that Ed Cunningham quit one of the top jobs in sports broadcasting because of his convictions. The point is that Manji stood up to her faith at the risk of being ostracized or worse and has dedicated her life’s work to furthering the movement of moral courage.

The point is also that such stands of courage are notable because they are a rarity in our times. Moral courage tends to be the exception to the rule of the day – ‘me first.’ The mantra of me first is at the root of almost every major problem we face today – disparity of income & wealth inequality, dysfunctional government run by lifelong politicians, the epidemics of addiction, crumbling infrastructure and the failing environment. And it’s not just ego and selfishness that drives these problems, but they are compounded by a modern culture of apathy, indifference, and contempt.

Said Noel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel: “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” Wiesel goes on to say that “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

Elie Wiesel wrote about perhaps the most glaring example of such neglect which occurred in the 1930’s & 40’s in Nazi Germany. Many protected their own self-interest - Their families, their jobs, their possessions. In doing so they contributed to one of the biggest crimes against humanity, not to mention their own countries demise and destruction. Indeed, when we put only our needs first, we neglect the moral necessities of our time.

These days there are also many who want to put their family, country or company first. While in some ways it’s natural and understandable to put you and yours first, frankly the sentiment is misguided and ultimately wrong. 'Me first' presents a self-absorbed narrative that puts blinders on the many extremely important issues of the day – poverty, failing societal health, the environment, education – things that affect us all in one way shape or form.

To right this ship, the single most important question we can ask ourselves is ‘what do you love in life more than you love yourself?’ Said another way, ‘what are you willing to die for?’ It’s a strong question, but one we all need to ask in our daily lives if we have a shot at correcting the sentiments of indifference, selfishness, and greed. Rather than responding to the issues of today with apathy, we have an ethical responsibility to stand up and ask, ‘what is going on here?’

We live in important and tumultuous times where a desperate need exists for leadership and the willingness to take stands. Even at the cost of a job, relationship, or personal gain we must put our conscious and community first. In a world of limited resources, interconnected economies, and common problems, the notion of me or even America first is archaic. As Thomas Paine said, “My country is the world. My religion is to do good.” Our ultimate task is to put the collective needs of the community first and as Paine rightly stated, “to do good.”