To Judge or To Love
15 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment
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We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are powerful, we are strong, we are able. We see the need for change, and it’s up to us to make it happen – in our lives, in our homes, in our world. We are the women who step up in our mothering. We are the daughters, the lovers, the sisters and friends who show up in our lives with integrity, authenticity, truth and strength. We stand up for the right to speak and be heard – the right for women to birth as we wish, to live as we wish, to teach our children as we wish. We take personally the responsibility to send our children forth as living arrows into the world, to create the change we wish to see – to create new paradigms of power in a good way, with love for all, with respect for all, with integrity for all. It is no small task, and we choose our every step wisely.
This is not an easy path – to forge a world of mindfulness, loving kindness, and compassion, when those who have gone before us have left no template behind. We struggle. We mess up. We grieve, we mourn. We feel small – so, so small – and vulnerable. We question, and we falter. We face the critics – those on the outside, and sometimes far worse – those inner critics that tell us that it will never happen. You can’t do it. You don’t know how. You won’t do it right. Give up now before you make a fool of yourself. People will think you’re crazy.
This is why we have to be in it together. Life is messy. The beginning of life – birth from a woman – is messy. It’s bloody, and raw, and vulnerable, and tear-filled. We cry out, we call on strength greater than we’ve ever known, we doubt our ability to do it at all. And yet – there’s love – so much love, and unimaginable joy. Even in the pain, the struggle, the challenge, there are moments of bursting open with love unlike we’ve ever known. Love is our greatest strength. Love is always more than enough. Love needs no reason. Love doesn’t need to make sense, or have all of the answers. It just IS, within us, around us, connecting us, and covering us.
We are in it together so that when you are at the end of your rope, I can be beside you to say “I have a little rope left today. Hand it to me.” We are in it together to be a rock for one another to stand on, and a soft place for each other to land. We are in it together so that when I reach the place of facing my own shadows and wondering if it’s worth it, there are sisters to bear witness and offer comfort. We are in it together so that when one mama says, “I can’t do it!”, there are three more to say “You can do this. You already are doing this. It’s ok to be scared. I believe in you.”
Women, we need each other. We need each other strong, and healthy, and nourished, and nurtured. Some steps on this journey will be hard. We will meet with pain and resistance – some from within, some from others. Our choices may differ, but the questions we ask are the same. Can I do this? Am I doing it right? Do you see me? Do you hear me? We have the choice, always, to judge or to love. We have the choice, always, to believe that we are all doing our best, even in moments when our best may not look very good to anyone else. We have the choice, always, to say “I did that better than you” or to choose to see with brilliant honesty that, “Yes, I’ve been there too. I’ve felt that way. It gets better, and here is my hand until it does.”
Not one of us alone can be strong enough for all. Together, each giving what she can and asking for what she needs, we are strong. Together, we are always more than enough. Together, we are powerful. Together, we are souls filled to overflowing. Together, we can change the world. We can do it. We already are. I believe in you. I believe in us. And so may it be.
