Showing all posts tagged love

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Life, Uncategorized

Pick a Side

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Pick a Side

We can no longer afford to theorize about what we might have done if we’d been alive during the second World War. With the events of this past weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, the time to pick a side and stand up for what you believe is RIGHT DAMN NOW.

Recently I read an article on Twitter about the defining factor between those who helped Jewish families and those who did not. The biggest difference between the people who risked their lives to save others and those who refused was their upbringing.

The people who were raised in an authoritarian setting, with punishment looming if you didn’t obey, stood by and did nothing while others were jailed, humiliated and murdered. Those who hid people persecuted by the Nazis at great risk to their own safety did so because as children they were taught to think for themselves and to question authority.

I can’t stop thinking about that article because the evil of “us versus them” is not just in the history books. It is happening now, in 2017, and it forces each one of us to pick a side. Not with our words, because we all know talk is cheap. Now is the time to prove with our actions whether we will stand up for the rights of all people and live with a sense of inclusion and compassion.

No middle ground exists here. This isn’t about left and right, conservative and liberal, fake news and real news. No shades of grey can be found in this argument. It’s time that every one of us looks deep into our own prejudices and sense of privilege. Unless we get really honest and brave about these topics, no true healing can take place.

The right response to the images and the rhetoric from Charlottesville is rage and disgust. This is the correct moral and ethical response to symbols of hate and bigotry. But as time moves on and these feelings fade, the next step is honest, reasoned conversation about the dark depths of our own hearts. When we get honest, we can start to heal and then to rebuild. It’s time now to create a healthy, inclusive, female-led world. We can’t possibly do a worse job of it than then men who have been leading for centuries.

No more grand theories. Now is the time for action. To stand up and say “NO” to hate, racism and supremacy. Now we need to work together, with love and generosity in our hearts and our words, to bring healing to such a divided, angry and lost world. It’s always darkest before the dawn, but we must build this new dawn. To make it better and more inclusive and compassionate than anything the world has seen before.

Pick a side. Neutrality does not work here. Silence is complicit agreement with the current power structure. Resistance speaks up, no matter what the personal cost, for what is right and decent and moral. It’s our time to rise. To heal. To extend our hands to those who need our help, whose very lives are threatened by this rising tide of hatred and fear.

Our weapons are love, truth, inclusion and courage. Who is ready to stand up and be counted? To speak up for what is right and to refuse to be silent and terrified. I have chosen my side and I will use my voice. This fight is too important for anything else.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth

The Future is Female

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Since the U.S. election in November 2016, I’ve been saying some variation of “the future is female” to anyone who will listen (and to some who will not), so to hear Rob Bell use this phrase in his fantastic story A Goat for a Boat re-lit a fuse somewhere in my soul.

For huge global change to occur, the existing power structure must topple. This often involves life-and-death struggle, bloodshed, loss and pain. It’s a long, slow march with a high price tag for the leaders of the movement.

The patriarchy is a long-held institution and its destruction will be costly, ugly and difficult. But also necessary. If the future is female, then we are in for quite a ride before this prophecy unfolds.

It’s interesting that Wonder Woman has been such a smash hit, coming at a time when U.S. politics feel so dangerous and damaging to many of us. I think this is all part of the deconstruction of the patriarchy as we have long understood it. Of course those at the top of this power structure feel threatened. No one wants to lose their hold on power, but as history has shown us, eventually all systems implode when the pressures inside of them and outside of them become too strong.

We are living this out. It’s going to take a long time and be brutally awful before it’s through. But the process of change is stirring. Anyone paying attention can see that something is happening in our world.

As the plot of Wonder Woman so brilliantly demonstrated, compassion and truth are the keys to a future run by women. We are stronger when we lead as a team, with our arms linked, instead of from an outdated top-down hierarchical approach. Those days are behind us. Something new is unfolding. It’s time for love to take the lead.

My 14-year-old daughter gives me hope for the future. She has grown up believing that she is a leader. She promotes fairness, equality, gentleness. Nothing in her says that boys are better leaders. That cultural programming never had a chance with Ava and most of her friends. They simply don’t buy it, and why should they? It’s garbage and always has been.

The future is female. Thanks, Rob, for echoing this sentiment so beautifully in your clever children’s story. The time is now to recognize the obvious limitations of white men holding onto power at any cost. The way forward is to include everyone when the decisions are being made. We need many different voices at the table.

Women have a lot to say. We can contribute. We are leaders with a fresh perspective on local and global issues. It’s our time to shine, to collaborate, to offer up solutions with peace and kindness at their core instead of violence and competition. If the future is female, our outlook is bright and optimistic.

In Culture, Minimalism, Nurture

Excess is Killing Us

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I went to the U2 Joshua Tree 2017 concert in Vancouver on Friday night. Not because I wanted to, but Jason had never been able to get tickets in his younger years and always had a burning desire to see them perform live. Supportive wife that I am, I agreed to go with him for a birthday present.

From what I’ve read, this tour is a scaled-down show for U2 compared to some of their previous tours, but I found it overwhelmingly high-tech, expensive and over the top when it came to lights, screens and effects (admittedly, I attended Christian concerts in my youth with the likes of Michael W. Smith, Steve Green and Amy Grant so I’m not a connoisseur of rock music and I’m a true Granny at heart when it comes to noise and spectacle).

As a culture, we seem to crave endless entertainment. But when is it enough? If we are constantly searching for bigger, louder, more impressive and expensive, when does this thirst ever get quenched? And at what point do we decide it’s too much and now we want something simpler, deeper, more accessible to everyone instead of just those at the top of the economic structure?

My journey into minimalism has radically shifted my perspective on what I’m willing to spend time and money on. I question everything now, which I think is good and healthy (albeit awkward and often tense at parties or functions when I start to rail on about my theories).

When Jason and I discussed this on the way home from the concert, he said, “This live performance is also a unique experience that we’ll have forever. That’s part of what we’re paying for.” I agree with this, in theory, but I still question the cost, both financially and morally, of investing in something so big and loud and insanely expensive for what amounts to ninety minutes of entertainment.

Excess is killing us. Flash and dash does not satisfy long term. I want to invest in depth and substance, something that moves the needle of love, mercy and justice toward the oppressed instead of focusing on my own nostalgia and appetite for entertainment.

Is it wrong to go see U2 in concert? Of course not. But I think it’s okay to admit that I have conflicted feelings about being part of something that costs millions when the world is in such desperate need of water, food, safety, equal rights, environmental conservation and peace (to name just a few of our global issues). These things matter more than my desire to be wowed at any cost.

I don’t know what the answer is here. I wish I did. All I know is that my heart hurts for the intolerance and simmering rage I observe in our society right now. We need to think bigger in terms of solutions and hope for everyone, not just a select few. I want to go beyond consumption, entertainment and individual excess. I long to see what we can do together for the poor, the broken, the marginalized, the sick. Less of what I need, more of what we need.

But how? This is the question I’m desperate to answer.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth

You Are Enough

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’m in need of some personal encouragement, so I thought I’d remind myself of a few basic truths in this space and hope it helps some of you out at the same time. I’m going to write in the second person because it increases the likelihood that I will actually listen, for I can trick myself into thinking someone else is soothing me. Give it a try. It works wonders.

Here we go:

You are enough. It’s not necessary to prove your worth to anyone, for any reason. No more striving, hustling, defending. Instead, practice the art of stillness, of simply sitting in the beautiful mess that makes up your existence.

You are not behind. I know it feels like you are. Our culture continually reminds us that we are not as accomplished, thin, attractive, rich, intelligent or popular as we long to be. But you are right on time. You have important lessons to be learned in the exact place where you find yourself. Slow down and try to notice more. Something is happening in your life and it matters.

You are important. Your value does not go up if you are successful or plummet if you fail. You are worthwhile, all the time, at every single moment, because you have been given the momentous gift of life and breath and possibility. Don’t allow yourself to live as if you are small and worthless. This mistaken belief degrades all of the talents, joy, generosity and purpose you possess. Other people love you. Be sure to love yourself.

You are unique. Comparing to others is a dead-end road for happiness. Refuse to do it. Get off social media. Write something instead, or paint, garden, walk, bake, swim, play music, jump on a trampoline. Go outside. Watch a sunset. Breathe slowly and intentionally. Remember the simple pleasures of this life and return to a time when you were blissfully unaware of what other people were doing because the damn internet hadn’t been invented yet.

You are enough. Remind yourself of this honest truth, every single day. You matter, you are valuable, you are not falling behind, and you are a one-of-a-kind model. Don’t forget that the cracks are how the light gets in. You are not broken. You are enough and you are loved.

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Broken, Cracked Souls

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on Leave a comment
Broken, Cracked Souls

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to be loved. She longed to fill every broken and cracked room in her soul with affection, warmth and care.

She felt empty. Damaged. Alone in a large and intimidating world. When this girl looked to the adults who were supposed to be in charge, she didn’t feel safe. They were drinking, fighting, manipulating, lying, hiding and punishing with bitter silences.

The girl ached for truth. She wanted to know what was right and wrong by watching it in action, not hearing about it in words, for the actions did not match the fancy, dressed-up lingo.

broken-cracked-soulsOver time, this girl learned to deny her own desires for love, honesty and kindness. She made her reality fit with her yearnings, even when the two things were oceans apart. She compromised, crammed, altered and minimized. In this way she could survive her own sensitivities to pain, darkness, fear and secrets.

Then the girl grew into an adult. By now her denial was as natural as the breaths she took, without once pausing to consider the function that her breath and denial played. She went to school, she worked, she fell in love, she got married, she had kids, she joined the PTA. The girl was now a woman, sleepwalking through her days and nights, frozen in her buried feelings, lying the same way her parents taught her to.

When the girl was 37 years old she finally woke up. The agony of feeling those emotions was excruciating, but at least now she could tell she was alive. She learned that minimizing your feelings leads to rage on a slow boil, so fucking toxic that it will eventually consume you if you don’t face it head on and call it by its proper name.

The girl found people who taught her how to love and how to be loved. It was foreign and exhilarating and awful. It was vulnerable, the only place she ever experienced actual freedom and truth. It took every ounce of bravery and trust she could summon. Every single day she had to find the strength to do it all again, but it was better than the frigid numbness of the first half of her sleeping life.

Now the girl could show her children a new path: one that embraced the entire feeling spectrum. This was big and expansive and wide by comparison. She could lean in and love with her whole heart. She could practice relying on others, not the ones who had routinely let her down, but a fresh set of people who proved worthy by their actions instead of their meaningless promises. Now the girl could breathe.

She could create for herself what her family of origin could not give her, either in her childhood or now. The cracks in her soul would heal but never disappear. They were reminders of what she had overcome, hopeful markers for those in desperate need of light and redemption. The girl had a dream to bring these broken and cracked souls together, to one place of nurture and belonging, so they could love one another back to life and know they weren’t alone any longer.