Climate Movement Values: Love

Introductory Series Post #10.1

However much we sometimes want to dodge it, love has a profound emotional component; it is powerful, regardless of whether that emotional power is expressed. It’s there.

It’s this powerful emotional side that scares people from wanting to talk about it or even experience it. That’s why I call it “the L-word.”

So does embracing the L-word mean we are going to be emoting all over the place all the time? Does recognizing love as a value mean we have to be forever goopy, crying, hugging, constantly sharing our feelings, a continual colonoscopy of emotional exploration?

OMG, running for the exits. Not interested! When the hell are we going to do something? We’re here for the action!

Believe me, I understand. But wait, just wait. There’s a vital connection here. The emotional side of love is our greatest and deepest source of fuel for action. And action makes our future come faster, creating hope along the way.

To help in understanding why this is so, let me clarify the difference I draw between emotions and feelings.

Feelings are fleeting; feelings are on the surface; feelings can quickly come and go; feelings are not something to build on, to draw from; they are not a sustainable source for action. They may help — or hinder — in the short term.

Emotions, on the other hand, are a much deeper well — especially the emotional side of love. Emotions can produce feelings. No one can “push your buttons” like a loved one. Feelings of happiness, joy, anger, exasperation, fear, anxiety can all be produced throughout the day by our loved ones precisely because we love them. These surface responses are based on something much deeper, more stable, and long-lasting. You can be angry with a loved one, and if they have wounded you deeply, that anger can last a long, long time precisely because they tapped into this deeper well, this emotional power. To cope you may cut off ties with them. You may say you don’t have feelings for them anymore; they mean nothing to you. Your feelings may become numb. But if you were to learn that they had died you find yourself grieving because that deep emotion of love never went away and has come bubbling up to the surface, mourning all the lost chances to express your love and be loved in return.

So love has this deep and powerful emotional component. But for us love is about action. That emotional component inspires us to act, it spurs us to action; it keeps us acting for the long haul.

Why we act, and why we keep acting until the job is done, is based on love’s powerful emotional component. Love is our greatest source of inspiration and motivation, our greatest source of power.

Love also guides us in how to act (and, of course, how not to act), especially when combined with wisdom, one of our other Ten Movement Values. Love is not about rigid abstract rules or codes. Because love is focused on the wellbeing of the beloved, the one to whom the emotional part of love is connected, and not necessarily on keeping a set of abstract rules, love is flexible. This leads to another of our Movement Values: pragmatism. So love guides us in how to act, but always creatively, one more of our Values.

Love is our ultimate moral guide.

Love is the ultimate moral guide in that it helps us determine what is right and wrong in each particular circumstance. Is this the best thing to do for my beloved and those loved by others? Then that’s what I will do. Do I need to get creative? Do I need to be flexible and pragmatic in doing what’s best for my beloved? Then that’s what I will do.

The love we have as a Movement Value is love for others, especially our “loved ones.” Love also can extend to those treated unjustly, those most vulnerable, humanity in toto, those yet to be born, other creatures, special places, all of earthly existence, and God or what we deem greater than ourselves.

We are fighting for who and what we love, because we love them we want to create a better world and a better future, leading to our commitment to the Better Future Covenant.

But to have this better world, we must work with others to create it, those also seeking to create a better world for their loved ones, because we can’t on our own. And to create a better world we must live in and live out all of our other Values, and that living-out is powered by love, the L-word.

And so it is this web of loving relationships that is the inspirational foundation upon which we build our Movement and grow our Climate Action Supporters. Love is also our greatest source of fuel for the fight.

Love is foundational. Love is our deepest wellspring for action. Love’s power sustains us and propels us forward as we make our future come faster. Love is our ultimate guide. Love nurtures all of our other values: justice, beauty, freedom, creativity, pragmatism, non-violence, sustainability, wisdom, and success.

Simply put: the L-word is our most important Movement Value.

Remember to check out the other posts in this Introductory Series.