Material commitment. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, while in Berlin, used the words, “material commitment” in the midst of several powerful assertions. Why does that excite me? It excites me because the material is where we show what we value. And we truly must create and nurture on the physical plane those truths that affirm and protect our value as a world of humans ready for love’s work.
Work. Material. Commitment.
If you look over at the piece of furniture to your left, your eyes see a material object, no doubt. But what your eyes don’t see is the reality equally real, equally present and that is what we cannot see but through a powerful microscope: all the movement that is the solid object still there to your left or your right. We could go so far as to call that movement we’re not able to see with our eyes, “spiritual,” if we want to do that. But we don’t have to do that in order to see that someone valued something and created an object as a result of that value. Our values birth urges, urges birth values, back and forth we go with a desire to create, to do, to make real. So, that object you see exists because someone felt an urge within to create a thing and a thing now is and the urge that prompted the creation is that which no microscope can reveal. And a microscope need not reveal the urge since the reveal is in the physically present molecular stuff created. Yet that urge is just as real as the jiving, vibrating molecular stuff of every object, and more significantly, every person the world over and every urge, every longing, every belief, every fear is just as real as the airplane flying overhead, as alive and significant as every bird singing on high and when we act in the energy of any urge, we are literally weaving that energy onto the physical plane. It’s as if our bodies are the needle or the hook, depending on your preferred maker’s instrument. And we weave each day, the energy we house within our beings. Though our weaving work may not be as obvious as a coffee table, airplane or lovely bird, our work is very real.
And sometimes without realizing it, as a result of our many feelings, desires and urges, along with our creations, we have made commitments. We find that somewhere along the way, we committed to beauty, to creating beauty. Or we committed to expressing truths. And we get to such commitments by way of a series of very human experiences. We explored possibilities and we became aware of what we require to live in this life as authentically as possible. Through such explorations we arrive at a sense of our values and we recognize the commitments required to protect and nurture those values. Some of us may not realize it, but we commit when we consistently act on what we value. So many of us do this day in and day out, we lose touch with the fact that much of what we do was birthed by a commitment. Our lives feel more habitual than intentional. We literally require times of stillness to reconnect with our values, with our commitments. And for those of us with a more global sense of who we are, as we focus on our commitments, we realize the times constrain us and insist our focus be on our value and on the rewards of committing to the absolutely beautiful value of every human being on this planet. It doesn’t look very hopeful these days. Our backs are to the wall, in a very real way. How will we make real in this world the fruit of our commitment to our value? We’ll get there by seeing that just as a carpenter has the power to create a world of beauty simply because s/he wants to, we, too, have that power with every effort we put forth in agreement with the boundless value of every creature on this planet. And it starts within the one heart, your heart here and now. And you, me, they, we cannot do it alone. We are asked to see, in this age, how connected we truly are and in that seeing we can be encouraged by the love shown on the streets of Minneapolis in defiance of hate and, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, in the cities like Berlin and so many others all over the world where people refuse hate and build from love.
Because her values compel her forward into life, into appointments and many crucial events, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is weaving the truth of our value through her words and her actions as she boards a plane and lands on the other side of the world. And as she speaks truth, insisting on all our value. We, each one, literally do the very same thing daily though we aren’t often aware. My prayer is this: that we awaken to the energy we weave and begin to ask ourselves how we might be wholly who we are in love so this world can birth the age to come, a time of love and peace and plenty for all. What are we weaving through time and space? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminds us all that we create with every tick tock slice of time within the world we are placed and if we commit to a vision of love, we can create a beautiful world for us all.
So, calling all would be weavers of love…if you speak my language, you know what I’m saying here. Let’s not see our elected officials with the broad strokes of political partisanship. Let’s see them on a more molecular jive as they move their bodies through the timeline we all reside. Let’s see their actions, weigh the accumulation of their intentions and hold them in prayerful support that they be held by love, that they be led in truth and that we, too, be thus committed to the wellness of all humanity.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wakens my heart to truths that fell into a slumber in the tides of some surreal life challenges. And I know she will continue to do this everywhere she goes because her heart is on fire. And I will say this to anyone who thinks they know she didn’t do a thing the “right” way or think she should’ve done thus and so or she did well and oh, or said this and that in such a way: her whole life is speaking and the message is undeniably authentic and life-giving. If you or I were judged by any who misunderstand us, we would be bereft of the love we must all realize materially and spiritually in our lives, a love that gives room for us to become and grow into all that love calls us to be and create. I would hope to be as courageous and consistent as Ocasio-Cortez.
Read the full quote below and ask yourself where you fit into this work of love.
“We all need to buckle up. That is the moment that we are in. But if there is any place that shows that good people can prevail over the horrors of inhumanity, it is Berlin. It is Berlin. And it is so many other places around the world that can be a front line to show that we can overcome and we can defeat fascism by a class-based solidarity that champions all of us. I think about this, I think about this, and I’ll end with this note, but I think about this very often because, of course, the universal health care systems in Europe are the envy of every American. And it is truly such a revolutionary environment that you all grow up in the universality of health care, because it really is a decision and an affirmative material commitment to everyone’s basic humanity, to human dignity. And to me, it is not a coincidence that universal health care systems across Europe were established in the wake after World War II. They are directly connected where you had all of this destruction, in all of this rubble that was built on a politics of persecution and division, but when we decided to move past that, we built material systems based on universality, affirming our human dignity. And I think it’s so important for us to recall those lessons for today as we confront many of the shadows of those similar movements.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Ocasio-Cortez is saying that, at the worst of times, a people responded to the devastation of war and hate by affirming value in love. And they did it politically. Amidst the rubble, the spiritual rubble. And we are, all of us, in a swirling whirlwind of rubble of every kind. We need to know ourselves in the center of the storm as the love we have been created to be and become, create and nurture. And we need to ask ourselves how intentionally we are living our love, and all that we claim to value as we go about our days.
On with it…
