Yesterday someone yelled at me to get off the road.
I was riding a bike on a far too busy two-lane highway. The moment I realized that I shouldn’t be on such a busy highway, I pulled off. Which some irate person in a hurry at 8:30AM on a Saturday morning heading out of town for their Memorial Day weekend saw as the perfect moment to vent their feelings:
“Get off the road you asshole.”
I was so grateful that all their anger elicited in me was an affirmation that I was on the wrong road, and a strong feeling of concern and compassion for someone that angry on such a beautiful Saturday morning.
There has been a lot of talk about civil liberties these days. About our rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This comes from a long long tradition of justifying all kinds of behavior based on what it says in documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bible.
Basically, we will all use any external authority to justify any behavior we want to justify.
Why?
I believe it’s because we have lost the ability to answer to our own hearts. Our hearts, which are our conduits to Love. Which is the only “Authority” that matters.
Living in a place where I only “know” three people — my next-door neighbor, my landlord, and a nice woman whom I met on a walk — I’ve been learning much more quickly than I would have being busier and surrounded by a familiar community, how to listen to Love. Only.
And I’m amazed at how little I’ve truly listened to Love and let Love guide me.
I’m also amazed at how many good excuses I still have not to listen to Love. Many of which involve an inordinate amount of inane screen time.
But here’s the bottom line: In every single thing we think, say or do, we need to learn to check in and see whether or not we are listening to Love.
We have to stop relying on external documents to prove or justify anything.
We have to make Love our bottom line.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
I was reading recently that Thomas Jefferson originally wrote the phrase life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness all in lower case in the Declaration of Independence. He changed it.
Since Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder, he certainly did not put into practice allowing his slaves the unalienable right of life and liberty or the pursuit of happiness. So it is my belief that he changed it to reflect a larger Truth: That all men are created equal by God, in Whom Jefferson believed. And that it is God that endows those men with these Rights. Rights as in spiritual Rights. And so just like he capitalizes Creator to mean something larger than any human authority, he capitalizes Life, Liberty and Happiness to indicate that these are every man’s spiritual birthright.
In the 21st century, we could all deconstruct this based on what we now know about Jefferson, about his African-American “wife” whom he loved and who was a former slave. About the use of men instead of men and women or humans. And about the institution of slavery in Jefferson’s home state of Virginia which Jefferson saw as his own unalienable right.
But most Americans don’t really cares about history. We just want to believe that we are all justified in whatever we do to claim our unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And some people take that to mean that anyone who disturbs that deserves whatever they get. . .
How did we get here?
Well, we could cite a ton of history, or we could just look into our own hearts.
Is every thought we think, word we say, action we take guided and governed by Love?
This is the bottom line. I’m not talking about love with the little l. I’m talking about the Love that created us all. The Love that loves us all. The Love that truly does not see anything but Love.
So. . .how do we know if we are being guided by Love? This is where heart-centered practice is so important. Heart-centered practice teaches us to stop making our heads our authority and instead learn how to listen to our hearts. We learn this by using our hearts. Which means we have to practice using them.
Sound ridiculous?
Well, if you want to play competitive tennis, you’re probably going to have to practice, right?
If you want to learn an instrument, you’re going to have to practice that too.
If we want to stop relying on outside “authorities” to tell us what is okay — pieces of paper written hundreds or thousands of years ago — then we’re going to have to listen to our hearts to know what is true and real and right. And what is always true and real and right is Love.
The irony, of course, is that the majority of us don’t remember one thing we learned in history class or Sunday School. But we sure do remember whatever justifies our own beliefs and behaviors.
The only justification for anything is Love. The only litmus test for anything is Love. And the only way that we can know if Love is leading us it to learn how to listen to Love.
So today, as you move through your day, listen to what Love is asking of you — and do it! I mean really do it. Practice it. Make it a priority.
Practice Love by learning to listen to your heart as a conduit for Love — not for whatever behavior your head wants justified.
Listen to Love and Love will lead you Home to Love.