Revolutionary Love
Where were you when you first connected the care for your child to another person’s care for their little ones? Did you see that urge to care, to protect, to grieve and think: yes I get it?
My first time was sitting alone in my living room reading the New York Times, while pregnant with my first child in 2008. The world was celebrating Barack Obama’s historic win (and my partner was invited to the inauguration). I was following along remotely by reading in the paper of record. But what I remember most vividly wasn’t Michelle’s dress, it was a picture of a baby wrapped tightly in white funeral cloth surrounded by grieving family and community members. I remember the look of devastated loss on that mother’s face as I rested my hand on my belly and thought, “I wish I could protect your baby the same way I want to protect my own.”
Revolutionary love is a love so strong that it takes you from wanting just to protect and care for those around you, to wanting to change the world and make it better for everyone. This is what Joy James’ talks about in Revolutionary Love, or what Audre Lorde's quote: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." really means.
We all have that voice inside us. An urge to make things better. To fix what is broken, unfeeling and inhumane.
Self care, revolutionary care is not something I say to make myself feel better about a spa day. It's what is needed to survive. As a black person I care for myself despite all the messages from the state that my being has less value, as a woman I care for myself despite all the messages outlined in our health and legal systems that my body is not under my own control, and as a mother I care for myself despite all of the messages that my labor is worth less. As a Black Jew I continue to validate my existence despite lack of recognition from other Black folks and Jewish people. The very act of seeing myself, my labor, and my care as having worth is an act of revolt against the system(s) I’m living in.
That willful act of self care allows me to care for other people I have been told are worth less. And the very act of reaching out to someone across perceived barriers of class, race, religion and nationality is also a revolutionary love. It continues to see the other as a human being worthy of care rather than as a thing, less than human and worthy of destruction. It demands that we treat others as ourselves. That healing and caring for others is healing and caring for self. In 2008 I witnessed a Palestinian family mourning for a baby killed in the Gaza War. Three Israelis and 1400 Palestinians were killed. My oldest is now 14. That lost little one would’ve been 15 and would now be in bodily peril of this new war that has killed countless more Palestinians. Perhaps that momma has had more children, like I have. Perhaps she holds them at night, like I do, relieved that they have survived the day. Perhaps that entire family no longer exists.
If you are someone struggling because your heart is full of revolutionary love and your mind is caught up in those perceived differences please come join us. If you are struggling to understand where to put this sacred rage that calls out for the world to do and be better, come practice with us. If that rage is starting to turn inwards towards your family or your own body, come embrace rage’s call to action. Remind yourself that caring for yourself and caring for others across differences is a first important step. There is a level of care existing in all of us that is so strong, it can be revolutionary. It breaks our hearts all the time because the world we have created sucks in so many ways. But come embrace heartbreak anyway. Embrace that your heart still cares. The work we are called to do as people who care is good, deserving work.