Arguing against the ways of the world is a thankless job.

You can get near-crucified for speaking against people’s deepest held beliefs.

Even if you’re merely speaking.

You need an example.

Well, there was once this carpenter… just kidding.

The realest example I can give you from my life is the vitriol I experience when I mention being a nonviolent communicator.

I won’t get into what that entails here, but essentially I don’t support any sort of violence towards anyone.

…

Did you get a little riled up when I said that? Did you feel your heart racing? Like, “That’s stupid! 😤”

It’s the same feeling omnivores tend to feel around vegans. Or alcoholics around sober people. Or happy sons, when they hear of a daughter who is estranged from her family.

Why are you rejecting a normal, even beneficial part of life?

People get heated when I mention nonviolence.

Why is that? Well, if you look here (as I gesture to the world) things are pretty messed up. Some fire or maybe shooting off a couple CEO’s is a way forward. Right?

I agree with you—I’m as bloodthirsty as the average peasant. I’m a woman. I also do a little fist pump when a rapist is killed in prison.

But at the same time, I recognize that that is an imperialist response.

I was born & raised in the US. I’m an imperialist, whether I like it or not.

There’s a another option.

When you hear things like “Love is the only truth” or “Love is more powerful than war” you may think these are just hokey sayings.

They’re not. They’re metaphysical reality.

But it can be easy, after so many times of hearing it with no proof in the outer world, to file it away as nonsense.

I want you to reconsider it.

I won’t “explain” but I’ll tell you a story:

The time I experienced transcendental love.

When I was in 4th grade, I was a voracious reader.

There was a boy classmate who started making fun of me for being a nerd and knowing everything and being smart.

So naturally I made fun of him back for being dumb.

I didn’t actually pay attention to his work or anything though, so it was baseless.

But for sure, I was trying to win.

I guess our teacher noticed because she sat the class down with us across each other, then she picked on him for popcorn reading, which she had never done before (I didn’t realize it was new until it happened).

He had such trouble reading.

I felt so bad.

I smiled at him when he was done, he smiled back.

We never made fun of each other again.

So what actually happened?

He mocked me for being smart. I mocked him back for being dumb. Felt fair, right? We were just keeping score.

Tit for tat assumes both people are playing the same game.

The second he started reading out loud, the whole scoreboard disappeared. I saw it all at once — a kid who loved reading, taking shots at a kid who struggled to read. The frame was completely wrong. I’d just been too inside it to see.

And that’s the part I want you to sit with.

“Love does not conquer all things, but it does set all things right.”

A Course in Miracles ~ T-4.V1.7

We smiled. That was it. Already gone.

That’s what love does. The real kind. The kind that sees clearly. It makes the war feel beside the point before you even think to fight it.

Yes, it’s abstract and spiritual and woo-woo and all the light, airy-fairy things.

But if you were in my seat in the 4th grade, you’d understand the deep & transcendent power of love. I cannot deny that, nor the ripple effects it’s had in my life.

Quantum people will get this: the act of observation collapsed the wave function.

Reality changed when I truly looked.