Many, many teachers
I’ve been thinking about my love teachers.
This month, I’ve been reading bell hooks, who taught that love is a verb. She sits in my canon alongside Dorothy Day on the reckless way of love, Rachel Held Evans on inclusive, effusive grace, Reinhold Niebuhr on the tension between love and justice, Martin Luther King, Jr. on nonviolence and beloved community, Sharon Salzberg on lovingkindness, Fred Rogers, who loved us just as we are, countless artistic souls, and others.
In person, I have learned from professors, chaplains, activists, friends, forests, my own body, many of you, and, most of all, my family, who love me so well. (I love you too.)
One tier out, each of these teachers had or has their own network of influences. Take, for example, Martin Luther King, Jr. He described his life as a “pilgrimage to nonviolence,” and outlined the teachers who pointed the way. In their time, of course, his teachers took their own journeys, and their teachers before that, and so on.
The point is: love is multifaceted. I imagine it as a magnificent prism that far surpasses what any one person can express or demonstrate.
To me, this is a relief. Love isn’t some ethical mountain to climb, or a level of purity to achieve, or something we must understand completely. Instead, we take what we are offered, we share what we are able, and we expand the collective endeavor. Each of us is imperfect and incomplete, and we belong to a breathtaking whole.
The world needs many, many teachers and even more practitioners. Guides and fellow travelers who reflect light. All of us, all together.
May you know the fearlessness of an open heart. May you never meet anyone you consider a stranger, and know that no matter what, you are not alone. May you have compassion for others’ suffering and joy in their delights. May you be free to give and receive love. —Sharon Salzberg, love teacher
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