Protest Practice
2017 Women’s March, Los Angeles, CA
Practicing, Practicing
I’ve been exploring—practicing, experiencing—serving in the justice movement as a spiritual practice. Not from a motivation of Exodus’ ‘welcome the stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ and not in the simple ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ of Leviticus kind of way (although we should absolutely do those things!)…of course I strive to do those, too. But, I’m trying to practice moving beyond identifying as being in the “helper” role, acknowledging all the ways in which I’m also being “helped” by being of service…and further still, moving past the helper/helped roles to explore the Echad/The One.
In a Jewish context, the obligation of tikkun olam (repairing the world) as the impetus for “doing good” is a common moral/ethical approach or framework for engagement with the justice movement. Would this be the only motivation, dayenu! What I am exploring, and have been practicing, is grounding in chesed (lovingkindness) as the motivation, and tikkun olam is often the outcome. Chesed for myself as I dive deep into my heart, chesed towards the stranger, chesed for the neighbor, chesed for the entire universe—ultimately all the chesed to and from The Source of Lovingkindness (or G-d, however one likes to define G-d).
I’ve never kept a journal, but if I were to make an entry about my attempts of practicing compassionate social action, I suppose I’d sketch something out like this…
Witnessing suffering. The first Noble Truth. The thread which weaves throughout us all. I witness and experience suffering with my full body and soul. I see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, smell it. The truth of suffering hurts.
Can I hold space for the Truth within me, within my community?
Truth of our beauty / truth of my beauty
Truth of our ugliness / truth of my ugliness
Truth of our suffering / truth of my suffering
Truth of our pleasure / truth of my pleasure
Truth of our hopes and prayers / truth of my hopes and prayers
Truth of our fears / truth of my fears
Truth of our awakening / truth of my awakening
Truth of our dying / truth of my dying
Truth of our love / truth of my love
Truth of our inter-being / truth of my inter-being
Truth of our present moment / truth of being present in this moment
Truth of our creativity / truth of my creativity
Can I stand still in a space of Not Knowing?
What is true justice?
What is true liberation?
What is true healing?
What is true redemption?
What is my role in bringing justice, liberation, healing, redemption?
Seeing myself in the “other”: After the election of Trump, I marched in solidarity with millions of scared, angry and saddened people worldwide. We took to the streets, people’s voices raised. Joy and pleasure to see the power in numbers. Fear and anticipatory grief to see the power in numbers. I’ve thought about this experience a lot during the pandemic. We’ve had several critical protests during this time, and I’m reminded…
The creativity and diversity in today’s protest signs... Something in particular struck me then that I have contemplated quite a bit: the leather dom/sub Trump-Putin poster, held high above the crowd. Surrounded by nearly one million people in downtown Los Angeles, I meditated on this image. Turning inward to practice at the protest, I heard the Truth: I am the oppressor and the oppressed. Where am I competitive? How do I dominate or manipulate others? What is at the root of this behavior? Sometimes I feel small and weak. My voice unheard, so I yell louder or say something meaner. Insults and judgments, then shame. Allowing myself to feel this. Fully. Chesed…I know where I learned this from. It was modeled and instilled during the endurance race of surviving a childhood in a home with an angry father, who learned it during his childhood. So many of us with no choice but to grow up in towns that offered little love to the “other,” to the “stranger.”
The absence of love or lovingkindness. An unfortunate relic of ancestral trauma, handed down like a family heirloom of old silver serving platters. The wounded child. The hurting child. How awful. The Trump inside of me. I am that too. I imagine Trump as a newborn baby. Innocent soul, longing for his parents’ love. Where did he experience chesed in his life? Can he be swaddled in a blanket of divine love? The Putin inside of me. Short and strong; small and weak. Dictating, demanding, expecting. Violating boundaries, my own included. Can he too be swaddled tight in a blanket of love? Honoring my family lineage’s Eastern Europe roots. I call in my ancestors who have fled and fled again, in search of chesed. How many marches did they attend? How many times have they hardened their hearts? Polishing the silver heirloom to find my reflection, my true Self, that has been clouded and dusty. A little messy on the surface, buried underneath the full picture of Truth. I keep marching. I keep practicing. I offer my prayer of action…
Dancing between exile and home, I feel for the ground below my feet.
Moving into action: I come back to the protest chants and screaming around me. Triggered by loud noises and emotionally sensitivite to yelling, my tears flow. My protest chant is not a yell. I quiet my mind and open my heart. I march in silence. My true protest—grounded in chesed—my practice of compassion in action will come through my work funding lawsuits, legislation and community education campaigns, activating the grasstops to leverage their privilege for progressive change, and strengthening the movement by sharing resources, networks and skills.
I offer myself as a wounded child and wounded healer to the service of the movement, but really as an offering to the Source of Compassion, my true Self. Bowing inward and bowing outward, I march on. The path and the goal the same. No attachment. No ego. I practice: quiet mind. Open heart. Karma Yoga, the yoga of action.
I’ve been a student of Ram Dass’s for long enough to hear his voice in my ear every morning. His directions are clear: “Work full-time to end suffering, having no attachment to whether suffering ends.” Yes, I’m practicing. Ramakrishna says, “To work without attachment is to work without the expectation of reward or fear of punishment in this world or the next. Work so done is a means to the end, and G-d is the end.”
I’m practicing.
