Since the executive orders started coming down, we have barely had a chance to breathe. Thousands of you took to the streets, showed up at airports, held vigils, called Congress, and even supported civil disobedience. Our show of resistance helped win a restraining order on the ban on Muslims and refugees – it’s temporary relief but a true moral victory.
All this in only 20 days. Will we burn out?
If we let fear, fatigue, rage, or despair overcome us – yes, our resistance will fizzle. Worse, we will start to mirror the very forces of hate and anxiety that we are resisting. But if we continue to ground our moral resistance in the ethic of love – love for others, our opponents, and ourselves – then I believe we will be able to sustain this movement for years to come.
That’s why we are reclaiming February 14th as a Day of Revolutionary Love, Day of Rising. This Valentine’s Day will be more than a day for love as romance; it will be a day to reclaim love as action, as revolution, as the call of our times. Will you join us?
Sign the Declaration for Revolutionary Love at http://vday.revolutionarylove.net/.
We have built a remarkable coalition of faith leaders, public figures, and organizations to reclaim love as a public ethic and a way to fight for justice – The Women’s March, One Billion Rising, Love Army, Moms Rising, Groundswell, Middle Church, and so many more.
By signing, we commit to do one of these things as our way of celebrating Valentine’s Day:
- Call Congress with love. We will tell our representatives that we commit to standing up to the executive orders and any policies that place people in harm’s way through loving action – today and throughout this administration.
- Rise up with One Billion Rising. Join one of hundreds events across the country and around the world where we will share music, poetry, dance, and declare our commitment to moral resistance. In NYC, please join an Artistic Uprising with me, Eve Ensler, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, musicians, poets, and artists in Washington Square Park on Feb 14th 6PM.
- Write a Love Note. We will write #RevolutionaryLove notes to others, our opponents, and ourselves and spread them far and wide through #WomensMarch and #LoveArmy.
This is a first-ever collaboration between faith and moral leaders and Eve Ensler – playwright, activist, and global champion of women’s rights – to center women and girls in our movement. Together we will reclaim love as social and political action to protect all those in harm’s way – including refugees, immigrants, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, LGBTQI people, Black people, Latinos, the indigenous, and the poor.
The last time the ethic of love was central in American public discourse was during the civil rights era, when faith leaders like Dr. King framed justice as a form of love: “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
In the decades since the civil rights era, love has been captured by Hallmark cards and sidelined as purely personal and romantic, far too fickle and sentimental to be a political force. Love has been sidelined as purely personal and romantic, far too fickle and sentimental to be a political force.
But in this dangerous new era, we reclaim love as an action. Love is a commitment to extend our will for the flourishing of others, of our opponents, and of ourselves. When we love even in the face of fear and rage, we can transform a relationship, a culture, and a country. Love becomes revolutionary.
Sign the Declaration for Revolutionary Love.
You will be joining faith leaders and prophetic voices from Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, and Humanist communities, including Sahar Alsahlani, Debbie Almontaser, Rev. Dr. William Barber, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Sister Simone Campbell, Rev. Noel Castellanos, Seane Corne, Kimberle Crenshaw, Bishop Yvette Flunder, Rev. Lisa Sharon Harper, Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, Valarie Kaur, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Rev. Michael-Ray Mathews, Rev. Brian McLaren, Rev. Otis Moss III, Melissa Harris-Perry, Bishop Gene Robinson, Simran Jeet Singh, Christopher Stedman, and Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Sensei.
Thank you, as always, for the ways that you show up with love every day. On Valentine’s Day, we will send a strong message to our opponents and allies that through Revolutionary Love we rise together.
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