Love as a Sacred Duty
Background
Across the United States, polarization rages across the United States, making it increasingly easy to become fixated on what sets us apart from others while ignoring the ways we’re connected as members of the same human family. It’s become more acceptable than ever to live in an echo chamber where the only voices we hear are from those who most closely resemble ourselves in appearance, thoughts, or actions.
The result is rising cruelty. Increasing inhumanity. Greater disconnection. More intense crises of spirit.
But what might happen if we come to terms with such hyper self-centeredness fracturing the precious “we” in our communities? And that loving each other – not just despite our differences but in celebration of them – is the cure for what ails us and brings us back to the sacred collective?
Initiative Overview
The Revolutionary Love Project dares to imagine communities as places where that kind of love can flourish. Starting in California and spreading from there, it’s building a movement throughout the U.S. to make love the foundation of who we are and what we do.
Valarie Kaur — founder, executive director, and visionary author and civil rights advocate — describes the organization’s mission like this: “We’re asking ‘What could change if love became the common goal for everyone?’ The Revolutionary Love Project inspires and equips people to build beloved community, centered on the ethic of love. Together, we’re teaching how to ‘see no stranger,’ be brave with grief, harness rage, listen across differences, reimagine our institutions, and fight for shared humanity.”
Key Components
The Revolutionary Love Project directly supports individuals and communities by providing practical tools and inspirational experiences focused on the ethic of love. So far, these efforts include:
Organizing educational and inspirational gatherings via The Revolutionary Love Bus Tour, which brings together communities across the United States to learn and practice revolutionary love.
Providing keynote addresses, lectures, films, and workshops.
Developing and distributing the Revolutionary Love Compass, a downloadable resource outlining 10 core practices, accompanied by a step-by-step guide for incorporating them into daily life.
Offering online training materials and courses tailored for educators, community leaders, early childhood professionals, parents, and families to help them apply the ethic of love within their contexts.
Impact
“Each of us has a role to play in healing, reimagining, and rebuilding our nation…… Revolutions happen not only in grand moments in public view but also in the spaces where people are coming together to inhabit a new way of being. We birth the beloved community by becoming the beloved community.”
— Valarie Kaur, Executive Directory & Founder of The Revolutionary Love Project
250+ million people reached through in-person and virtual mobilization events.
115+ worldwide headlines from CNN to NBC, NPR to the AP, PBS to “People” Magazine.
Tens of thousands of downloads of learning materials and courses.
250+ partner organizations and visionary leaders supporting and amplifying the movement.
#1 LA Times Bestseller awarded to founder Valarie Kaur’s book “See No Stranger”.
Conclusion
As one participant, Anusha Mehar, a Denver-based writer, producer, and cultural organizer, and a member of the Revolutionary Love Project. “There is some sort of chemical magic that happens when you bring people together in a sacred place, just by naming it sacred,” Mehar said. “And we’re trying to create these little pockets of the world as it could be, those spaces in between where you don’t have to confront all of the powers that be all at once. You just create something beautiful and let it change from the inside out.”
Guided by the values of love, truth, and integrity, the Revolutionary Love Project affirms life as a gift and upholds the dignity of every person. Its work centers on reclaiming love as a sacred duty for justice, healing, and transformation.
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