The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us? —Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
Authors LaUra Schmidt and Aimee Lewis Reau consider the impact of a heart-centered revolution made possible through our connection to one another:
We can experience joy, love, and beauty on this planet, even as it changes around us. To do this, we have to build personal and collective resilience—an ability to find equanimity in unpredictable times and as the suffering around us increases. We do this not by avoiding the Long Dark but by facing it, moving with it….
Connection has the power to ground us when the world is chaotic. Connection gives our lives meaning and offers joy, even in the dark [of the unknown]. We can then invest ourselves into meaningful action—the kind that promotes relationship and regeneration. Meaningful action can be a salve for painful feelings like ecoanxiety, ecodistress, climate grief, and overwhelm because meaningful action isn’t dependent on outcomes…. We do [this work] because it’s what needs to be done. It’s generative work, and it fills us with purpose.
It also lays the groundwork for a heart-centered revolution. In this revolution, we center relationships, connectedness, and love in times of suffering and disconnection. We open to our interconnectedness with all beings and make decisions based on compassion and insight instead of egocentric motivations. The heart-centered revolution is brought about by our inner equanimity and our love for each other, ourselves, and our planet as a whole. Instead of thoughtless and selfish actions, we reinvest ourselves with an understanding of the consequences to the larger world….
The calling of the heart-centered revolution is to find opportunities to cultivate a truly just and life-centered world, even if we never see it come into existence. [1]
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis writes of the solidarity necessary to transform our culture and our world:
In order to live a moral life, a good life, an ubuntu life, we must commit to a life of love that means seeing all the things. See your neighbor suffering and do something about it.…
Friend, you are the only one standing where you stand, seeing what you see, with your vantage point, your story. You are right there for a reason: to have, as my dear friend Ruby Sales says, “hindsight, insight, and foresight.” I want us to learn to see, with our eyes wide open, how best to be healers and transformers. I want us to really see, to fully awaken to the hot-mess times we are in and to the incredible power we have to love ourselves into wellness….
I want us open to revelation, not afraid of it, and open to the ways that it will provoke us to believe assiduously in how lovable we each are, and in the love between us and among us because, actually, believing is seeing. [2]
___________________________________________________
Sarah Young Jesus Calling
Spending time alone with Me is essential for your well-being. It is not a luxury or an option; it is a necessity. Therefore, do not feel guilty about taking time to be with Me. Remember that Satan is the accuser of believers. He delights in heaping guilt feelings upon you, especially when you are enjoying My Presence. When you feel Satan’s arrows of accusation, you are probably on the right track. Use your shield of faith to protect yourself from him. Talk with Me about what you are experiencing, and ask Me to show you the way forward. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to Me, and I will come near to you.
RELATED BIBLE VERSES:
Revelation 12:10 NLT
10 Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last— salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth— the one who accuses them before our God day and night.”
Additional insight regarding Revelation 12:10: Many believe that Satan still has access to God until this time (see Job 1:7). But here, his access is forever barred (mentioned earlier in Revelation 9:1 NLT—Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to the earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit). He can no longer accuse people before God.
Ephesians 6:16 NLT
16 In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil.
James 4:7 NLT
7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Additional insight regarding James 4:7: Although God and the devil are at war, we don’t have to wait until the end to see who will win. God has already defeated Satan (Revelation 12:10-12), and when Christ returns, the devil and all he stands for will be eliminated forever (Revelation 12:10-15). Satan is here now, however, and he is trying to win us over to his evil cause. With the Holy Spirit’s power, we can resist the devil, and he will flee from us.
