Active Love Writing

The following writing shares the practice of Active Love. What is it? How is it different from nonviolence and how is it similar? It shares the foundation it’s built upon, that the law is love, and love is the root of justice. It describes ways it would structurally change our institutions, our families, our workplaces. It offers a tool box for living and working through the law of love, bringing change to domination systems.

Please start at entry #1, in other words, scroll to the bottom, and work your way up.


5. All of Us Need All of Each Other

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Interdependence Expands Freedom Independence is defined by ability to choose your actions, make decisions. When independence is understood as self-reliance, however, freedom suffers. If you were truly self-reliant, you would spend your day figuring out how to get enough food and water and keep yourself safe. You wouldn’t need love or understanding, nor would there be a point in offering it. Interdependence, relying on and caring for others, increases options and thereby freedom. Nearly everyone relies on a network of relationships each day. We may eat food that someone else grew, use streets we didn’t pave, and live in a… read more

4. Love Creates

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If not resistance, then what? We are not forced to live between binaries: fight or flight, resistance or passivity. People often frame situations as this or that, yes or no, either you share my views and are in my group, or you are immoral, insane, or stupid. But love is by nature creative. We are creative beings who can imagine, name, grow, nurture, tend, and shape something new. Your choices are not between passivity and resistance. You have a third way, and a fourth and fifth and sixth and seventhÖ Water Ways If your energy is spent addressing a particular… read more

3. Reframing from Resistance

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“First do no harm,” is a concept often applied to medical practice. It’s important to the practice of active love also, and truthfully, is not easily done. Often, renunciation of harm while seeking justice is called ‘nonviolence,’ and related actions are described under the term, ‘resistance.’ Reactions to threat Fight, flight, freeze or fawn are the commonly described reactions to threat, and resistance is mainly a fight response. In order to resist a person, one needs to see the other as opponent, not a part of ourselves. In order to resist a group, one needs to categorize, stereotype and label…. read more

2. The Law is Love

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The practice of active love flows from the core principle that “The Law is Love.” In a legal context, a law is a rule or set of rules that provides the fundamental framework for addressing or preventing harm. It defines what constitutes harm, what obligations parties have in avoiding harm, and what response is made when harm happens. In science, a law describes the way something works. In the case of a scientific law, the universe doesn’t ever work a different way, as in the laws of gravity or thermodynamics. Spiritual laws prescribe what is right or moral. People often… read more

1. A Change in Operating System

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A Foundational Change People have been talking about love and peace for a long time. It’s common to dismiss such talk as simplistic, sentimental idealism. But living according to love is a significantly different life structure from our present social and institutional norms. It requires us to be open to making changes in each of our own lives in order to learn how to live outside of the dominance-based worldview nearly all of us have been steeped in from birth. It includes changing our language, and some of our most basic frameworks upon which we make our decisions. To develop… read more