Weekly Soul - Week 27 - Love
Today's meditation from Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living by Dr. Frederic Craigie.
-27-
Love
is another word that is a bit (or a lot) ruined- something we routinely speak
of as something we fall into and fall out of. But as a piece of intelligence
about what makes us human, and what we are capable of, it is a virtue and way
of being we have scarcely begun to mine. People who have turned the world on
its axis across history have called humanity to love. It’s time to dare this
more bravely in our midst, and dare learning together how love can be
practical, creative, and sustained as a social good.
Krista Tippett
Love can change the world.
There is the rippling, accumulative effect
of treating each person you meet with dignity and grace, but there is more. Creatively
applied, love fuels activism that reconfigures the world in the public sphere,
as it does among individuals.
Jonathan Cedar is a professional engineer
and avid camper. Weary of the difficulty of rationing gas and batteries on long
camping excursions, he and friends set out to develop small, energy-efficient
woodstoves that would run on the sticks and branches that were usually abundant
on the trail.
As their idea and product developed, they
realized broad applications in the less-developed parts of the world. They
learned that half of the people on earth cook over open fires, with staggering
personal and ecological costs. The WHO estimates that 4 million people die
annually from wood smoke exposure, largely women and children, who are
principally exposed to cooking fires. Wood fires, moreover, account for 25% of
global black carbon emissions, more than all the world’s motor vehicles. They
also learned that increasing numbers of these people have access to cellphones
but often have to travel for hours to access electricity to recharge them.
It occurred to them that they potentially
had two distinct markets that were tied together by the common need for
off-the-grid energy; first-world outdoor enthusiasts and rural people in
developing countries. Cedar and colleagues create a business model that they
call “parallel innovation,” whereby profits from sale to the
relatively-affluent hikers and campers are used to underwrite product
distribution and discounted sales in India and sub-Saharan Africa. Their
company, BioLite, produces a variety of products, but the flagship product is
their original camp stove that provides smokeless cooking fire and a USB-port
electrical connection for powering a small light and charging gear. This is
convenient for the outdoor enthusiasts and life-giving for people who have
never had access to such resources. Through social entrepreneurship and reaching
out in caring and compassion to affirm the dignity and empower the lives of
other people in a sustainable and mutually-beneficial way, love changes the
world for two groups of people half a world away, as I imagine it surely does
for the developers who make this happen.
I see the transformative effects of love
all around: the Afghan-refugee Lyft driver who makes a point to invite new
neighbors to dinner, creating a spirit of community among people from all walks
of life; the physician and social worker in rural Maine who have created a
culture in their primary care practice where employees feel safe and affirmed
to bring their whole selves to work and where patients can feel a spirit of
welcome and hospitality; and the nonprofit CEO who works tirelessly on behalf
of statewide and regional health care access. At the largest social levels, my
experience in the antiwar movement in the 1960s was that it certainly witnessed
the complete range of human emotion, ultimately fueled by love, the widespread
dream that we really could create a better, more compassionate world.
One of my heroes is Ernest Saunders. I
knew Ernest, now long passed, in his retirement after a distinguished career as
a theologian and seminary professor. I remember asking him, as we washed dishes
together after a public supper, how he would put into words the meaning of agape,
the highest and most humanly generative form of love among the several words
that the ancient Greeks used to describe love. His response: “living toward other people so that they can become all that they
have been created to be.”
Love touches the hearts of individuals,
and love—personally and structurally—changes the world.
Reflection
- How have you seen love as a
“social good,” creating opportunities for people or forming more
compassionate cultural relationships?
- What qualities do you see in
people whose grounding in love begins to transform some part of the world?
How do you see these qualities in yourself?
- What do you think about Dr.
Saunders’ comment about agape? How do you… how might you… live toward
other people“ so that they can become all that they have been created to
be?”
Author
Krista Tippett (b. 1960) is an American
journalist, writer, radio host, and, herself, a social entrepreneur. After
college, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study in Germany. Subsequently,
she worked as an independent journalist and then served as an aide in the State
Department in Berlin.
Tippett earned a Masters of Divinity
degree from Yale and hatched the idea of a radio conversation about
spirituality and religion in everyday life. Speaking of Faith began on
Minnesota Public Radio and evolved into her signature program, On Being.
Its website describes the program: it “takes up the great questions of meaning
in 21st-century lives and at the intersection of spiritual inquiry, science,
social healing, and the arts. What does it mean to be human, how do we want to
live, and who will we be to each other?” Podcasts of On Being have now
been downloaded over 200 million times.
In 2013, Tippett began a non-profit
production enterprise, Krista Tippett Public Productions (KTPP), and debuted
the Civil Conversations Project, which orchestrates dialogue about challenging
issues with the foundation of six “grounding virtues; “adventurous civility,”
“hospitality,” “generous listening,” “patience,” “humility,” and “words that
matter.”
Her books are Einstein's God:
Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit, Speaking of Faith: Why
Religion Matters and How to Talk about it, and Becoming Wise: An Inquiry
into the Mystery and Art of Living (Penguin, 2016), from which the
quotation comes.
Book Description:
Keywords:
meditation; reflection; inspiration; miracles; aliveness; purpose; laughter; joy; presence; mindfulness; activism; acceptance; gratitude; forgiveness; creativity; civility; hope; affirmation; wholeness; well-being; mental health; personal growth; transformation; inner peace; personal reflection; joy; joyful living; inspirational quotes; inspirational commentary
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