LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Shannon Downey!

Let the world be a world

Dear Lovelets,

I’ve been reading your letters for well over a year now — and let’s just pause here and imagine for a moment what that has done to my HEART! To my MIND! To have absorbed thousands of letters that people have written to themselves from the spirit of Unconditional Love . . . what does that do to a SOUL?

I’ll tell you what it has done for mine.

It has caused me to start suspecting that we might, in fact, be incredibly and thoroughly and deeply loved.

The evidence sure seems to support it.

Because nowhere yet, in all those tens of thousands of letters that I have read, have I heard the spirit of Unconditional Love say to a person, “Well, my dear, I have terrible news for you. You’re doomed. And it’s all your fault. Because you made too many mistakes. I hope you’re happy with yourself, having ruined everything. There will be no redemption, so you might as well just go to your room and think about what you have done.”

No! Never!

It’s just, instead, this beautiful resounding chorus (sung in tens of thousands of different voices) shouting out about how loved we are, how we can’t make a mistake, how there is no cause for shame, how our lives are still (after all our foibles and stumbles) utterly miraculous — even if we never do anything at all but just sit there.

Phew.

That’s great news.

Our special guest this week is Shannon Downey, whom some of you might know better from her social media handle “BadAss Cross Stitch.” Funny, powerful, challenging, irreverent, Shannon tackles the biggest problems in the world within the tiniest and most perfect stitches. And her letter this week brought up the subject of how to build a new world, even in times of despair. And so that is the question we will look at together, for all who want to come along on this ride.

Let’s see what love has to say about world-building, shall we?

Love,
Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know about how to build a new world?

LOLOLOLOLOL.

Oh honey, you ambitious little fire ant! You don’t have to build a new world! There is already a world right here which we have built for you, and it is more of a playground than a battleground, if only you learn to see it the right way. Can you see the world as something that is not in need of changing (least of all by one woman who is already not getting enough sleep) but of celebrating?

Where along the way did you lose your sense of adventure and replace it with a sense of dread and duty? Cherished one, we gave you a body and a mind and creativity and imagination so you could explore and decorate the world, not bend it to your will.

There is a game at play here, and your only problem is that you keep taking it too seriously. Listen to what Shannon said about hanging out with the tricksters and the rascals and the artists — make sure to stay with those who are in on the joke, the delight, the wild creativity of this place.

The reality is that you will build many worlds throughout your lifetime. Look how many you have built already, only to walk away from them, or have them dismantled, or watch them collapse without your permission. You will play many roles, you will be many people, you will try on a lot of costumes, you will exert an enormous amount of energy to put things together exactly as you dreamed of them . . . and then the dream will change, and the scene will change, and you will move on. Or they will move on. Or the whole thing will catch on fire, or blow away in the wind, or be washed away in a flood, or lost in a divorce.

My love, this planet is too big and dynamic for you to control — but that is the whole point of life. Bring your own great big dynamism to whatever scene is in play, and jump into it, the way some little girls can jump into three or four swinging jump ropes at a time without missing a beat. The song is already playing, the beat is already beating — it was playing and beating before you were born — jump in on the next chorus as soon as you learn the world.

Keep up, my love. Keep up as best you can. But enjoy it! If you had hair, I would tell you to let the wind blow through your hair, but let it blow on your face, let it whip about you, let change be change, let the planet be a planet, let the game be a game. Let the world be a world. Just join it, stay in it, marvel at it, be part of it.

But no world-building, as you’ve been taught. No world-changing — I’m afraid you can’t. No nation-building — who gave you that arrogance? No, no, no.

If you get confused about any of this, go sit down next to a tree and ask a bird what you should do next. Then listen closely for the answer. That’s more of the style we are looking for here. That’s all the world needs from you today.

Let’s keep going. We love you more than we can say!

Prompt

As we close out the year, are you making to-do, to-be, to-change lists? Are you gearing up, getting ready, wanting to change the world? If you’d like to examine this impulse with us — and if you think you might need to reimagine the borders of that world, as well as who’s coming along to populate it — then please join us in asking: Dear Love, what would you have me know about building a new world?