The essence of love is giving. There is a coherent felt logic to this which must be felt to comprehend the logic. Once we poetically feel into it, it is obvious. All acts of love are acts of giving and receiving of gifts. That's like talking about gravity. For ordinary Earthlings, things fall toward the gravitational center of Earth. It's nakedly obvious.
This is why love is revolutionary in times like these. And I will thank Charles Eisenstein for helping me to grasp (by letting go of) the logic. Few humans understand as well as Charles that gift is the glue of community. It's the *necessary* glue of community. Without gift there is no community -- which helps us put together a felt, poetic logic of community. Again, it's obvious to those among us who can FEEL this logic.
It's not "glue" like you're stuck and can't move. Rather, the glue of community *frees* us to move. It's only logical. There is no movement without love. There is, as Allen Ginsberg put it so well, no "rest" without love. Love is what enables rest. It's only logical.
As Charles Eisenstein has said so well, and so many times, community is not something we can add on, like some sort of architectural appendage after having built the building, the house, the city. It's not a decoration. It's the design of the building, the house, the city (if we wish to have cities.)
What love... what revolutionary love does ... is it turns the world order upside down, thus putting it rightside up again. The purpose for an economy is to enable and empower love -- or giving, and thus community.
Once the logic of this gets under your skin you can no longer see the world in the same old, tired, way again. The old world dies in us and we have no alternative other than revolution.
Giving is revolutionary. To truly give -- without turning gift into exchange -- is to embody and enact the very essence of the revolution of love. All else is another iteration of empire.
Pondering your modernity piece led me here. A pleasure meeting your good mind and your literary sensibility. First off, tell me if you've found anyone you feel deeply resonant with. I'll be surprised and delighted if there are a bunch.
Oh joy, I get to add to your body of knowledge commenting on this: "...some conceptual framing for the naked sacred and holy. I can find none. There is utterly nothing to hold onto." Yes there is. It's the updated story humanity hasn't adopted yet. Thanks to Hubble, it was established we are one humanity in an evolving universe -- not individuals on a dead rock. We have this quaint mythos about being sinners that need redeeming instead of being sacred creatures in a sacred universe who of course take care of our home. Have a look at what I just wrote on that subject: "Rabble-rousing for a new way": https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/rabble-rousing-for-a-new-way.
James, this is beautiful, and exactly the way I feel about loving kindness and relationality, which, as you say, are more universal than any one religion, although some such as Buddhism practise them. It's nice that you write so personally. Just now I am reading Matter and Desire by Andreas Weber, and Coming back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown. They are saying the same thing. I think this is the time for these things, and therefore the wellspring of our revolution, which surely is underway.
What I did not say is this.
The essence of love is giving. There is a coherent felt logic to this which must be felt to comprehend the logic. Once we poetically feel into it, it is obvious. All acts of love are acts of giving and receiving of gifts. That's like talking about gravity. For ordinary Earthlings, things fall toward the gravitational center of Earth. It's nakedly obvious.
This is why love is revolutionary in times like these. And I will thank Charles Eisenstein for helping me to grasp (by letting go of) the logic. Few humans understand as well as Charles that gift is the glue of community. It's the *necessary* glue of community. Without gift there is no community -- which helps us put together a felt, poetic logic of community. Again, it's obvious to those among us who can FEEL this logic.
It's not "glue" like you're stuck and can't move. Rather, the glue of community *frees* us to move. It's only logical. There is no movement without love. There is, as Allen Ginsberg put it so well, no "rest" without love. Love is what enables rest. It's only logical.
As Charles Eisenstein has said so well, and so many times, community is not something we can add on, like some sort of architectural appendage after having built the building, the house, the city. It's not a decoration. It's the design of the building, the house, the city (if we wish to have cities.)
Sacred Economics, a short film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZkQv25uEs&t=3s
What love... what revolutionary love does ... is it turns the world order upside down, thus putting it rightside up again. The purpose for an economy is to enable and empower love -- or giving, and thus community.
Once the logic of this gets under your skin you can no longer see the world in the same old, tired, way again. The old world dies in us and we have no alternative other than revolution.
Giving is revolutionary. To truly give -- without turning gift into exchange -- is to embody and enact the very essence of the revolution of love. All else is another iteration of empire.
Wow James , I love, love ,love this. I will post this on the Peace and Joy Rebellion collection and everywhere I can.
In Gratitude , Frances Scully
Pondering your modernity piece led me here. A pleasure meeting your good mind and your literary sensibility. First off, tell me if you've found anyone you feel deeply resonant with. I'll be surprised and delighted if there are a bunch.
Oh joy, I get to add to your body of knowledge commenting on this: "...some conceptual framing for the naked sacred and holy. I can find none. There is utterly nothing to hold onto." Yes there is. It's the updated story humanity hasn't adopted yet. Thanks to Hubble, it was established we are one humanity in an evolving universe -- not individuals on a dead rock. We have this quaint mythos about being sinners that need redeeming instead of being sacred creatures in a sacred universe who of course take care of our home. Have a look at what I just wrote on that subject: "Rabble-rousing for a new way": https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/rabble-rousing-for-a-new-way.
Amen
What a lovely, lively statement, James. Thank you.
James, this is beautiful, and exactly the way I feel about loving kindness and relationality, which, as you say, are more universal than any one religion, although some such as Buddhism practise them. It's nice that you write so personally. Just now I am reading Matter and Desire by Andreas Weber, and Coming back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown. They are saying the same thing. I think this is the time for these things, and therefore the wellspring of our revolution, which surely is underway.