It’s hard to know what to write these days. I’m saddened and infuriated by the detention of local laborers in the last week, some of whom were the parents of my daughter’s classmates. I’m anxious about the attack on science and scientists, fearing what this means for life-saving work in healthcare, climate change, and more. Friends who work in international development are having to cut ties with whole communities who have relied on their work for food and medical aid. Just closing up shop. These are people’s children, parents, aunts, uncles. This is profound human suffering.
This morning, I read this from the Center for Action and Contemplation’s newsletter, quoting Episcopal priest Adam Bucko:
“We must have the clarity to name evil for what it is, yet without losing ourselves in othering, understanding that in some way or form, we are part of what we are naming. We must engage not just with what’s out there but with what’s within us as well. History is filled with revolutions that promised liberation only to replicate the cruelty they overthrew. Justice movements have struggled against the pull of ego. Institutions built to resist oppression have, over time, become oppressive themselves… We must commit to both inner and outer work. We must say no to violence, no to greed, no to power that exploits and destroys. And we must do it even when it costs us—because that is what it means to live in truth. That is what it means to allow ourselves to be caught in the net of love.”
Anytime I’m tempted to say that the problem is only “out there,” I’m in danger. Anytime I’m unwilling to pay the cost of freedom, I’m complicit. Where in my own life am I tolerating or condoning violence, greed, or apathy? Where am I hiding out, just hoping my own life isn’t too disrupted? How am I participating in othering? That’s my inner work to do. And it’s intimately connected to the larger struggles I care about. How we do anything is how we do everything. There’s no separating my bigger visions for liberation from how I go about all my everyday choices, from how I spent my money to what gets my time and attention on a minute-to-minute basis. It’s all connected.
I love this injunction that “we must commit to both inner and outer work.” Just outer, and we get hollow activism that depletes or even harms us. Just inner, and we get self-absorbed spiritual bypassing that’s not living in reality. My word for 2025 is “intertidal,” where earth and land meet, the space that is sometimes visible and sometimes covered in water. The edge place. Part of our calling right now is to live in that intertidal zone, responding to the pain of the world while also tending to our own wounds, development, and inner light.
I was with a client this week who’s suffering profound loss. The tears are flowing constantly, and their life has been changed forever. But they reached out to me because some spaciousness has opened up, and they are ready to explore some patterns in their life. What a beautiful example of inner and outer work. The world needs us to be awake, and our excuses for not waking up are flimsy and costing us. May you live in truth. May you be caught in the net of love.