Don’t try to tell me that enlightenment is found on a cushion. Or that I can only find God in a church or temple.

Every rally is a communion and fellowship.
Every chant is a devotion to something greater than ourselves, to the spirit that connects us in our struggles and joy.
Every inspired shout is a petition, a prayer for something to be different than this life so full of suffering and oppression.
And every march is a step forward into the Unknown, trusting, surrendering, hoping against all illogical hope that a new life awaits.

Our action yesterday and going to jail in solidarity is what connects me to hope because, like Margaret Mead once said, “a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Yet, sitting in jail gave me time and space to think (and talk with others) about all that we’re up against. I feel the weight of it.

Somehow, it seems as though the amount of support and inspiration I feel is correlate to the amount of grief I feel. Again, I’m reminded that the more my heart breaks, the greater my capacity for joy and hope. This is the great paradox and conundrum of being a sacred activist, of being a human on this planet. I constantly live in that liminal space… well, I just can’t even really put it into words.

Sometimes, I wonder, do I really believe that we can change the world? The answer is the same as it is to the question: do I believe in God?

I don’t know. And, yet, I do. I have to.
Or, to put it another way: yes, but It doesn’t make any sense that I do.
Or another: I can’t help it.

All I “know” – or, perhaps sense is a better word – is that there is Something I can’t name that moves through me, that pushes me forward.

Sometimes, It feels small, like an itch I can’t reach. It nags at me.
Sometimes, It’s soft and billowy, gentle and comforting.
Sometimes, It sits beneath me and supports me as I surrender to It.

At other times, It’s fiery.
It surges through my body, electrifying every nerve ending from the tips of my toes to my fingertips, roiling through my belly, upward into my teeth.

I act without knowing why, just that I have to.
I speak. Words seem to form themselves in the space between my lips.
I know not from where any of this comes, except that it’s not from me.

What I am learning to do – and this lesson often comes swifter and harder than I expect or desire – is to release my fears and doubts, to surrender any piece of the small me that stands in the way of whatever It is that wants to come through.

Even as I write this, I can’t help but weep. These tiny sobs seem to have no origin in sadness or frustration – they seem to simply be releases of energy that my form can’t hold.

The feeling of the Great Mystery surging through me is all at once energizing and enlivening and exhausting. My body and mind are too small.

It’s hard to envision the future. Impossible, in fact. None of us really know what will happen. Living in this mystery is the sacred, mystical path of activism.