LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Lucia Knell from Upworthy!

Look for the good

Dearest Lovelets,

If there were one question I could ask God, or creation, or some all-knowing Delphic oracle, it would be this: “How much control do people have over themselves?”

This question has consumed me for years, as I wonder why people act the way they act. And when people are not as good or kind or generous or evolved as I want them to be, I become obsessed with wondering whether they are behaving so terribly because they CAN’T change, or is it because they WON’T change? Could they stop being awful if they actually tried to stop, or are they doomed by their minds to always act out in the most destructive ways?

Anyway, one day I was deep in meditation — really feeling that divine presence thrumming within me — and I decided it was finally time to throw the question out into the cosmos:

“How much control do people have over themselves?” I asked, within the infinite void.

The answer came back immediately:

“None of your business.”

Ha!

I love it when the universe gets cheeky with me — and I immediately understood the message: stop judging other people and obsessing over their actions. Instead, mind your own business. And what is my own business? That, I also immediately understood: my OWN awakening. My OWN evolution. My OWN work of changing into a better person. That is what I am here for — and if I’m all up in everyone else’s business, I cannot be present for the hard work of my own transformation.

So let’s stay focused, everyone — even as the dramas and outrages of the world attempt to draw our attention away from our own centers of calm . . . let’s stay focused. Keep your attention upon the voice of Love within you. You will always be told what to do, and those instructions never seems to include “obsess over what everyone else is doing.”

Our special guest this week is Lucia Knell, the co-creator of Upworthy, and the co-author of the book GOOD PEOPLE: Stories From the Best of Humanity. Appropriately for someone whose name means “light,” Lucia has devoted her life to finding and spotlighting stories about human kindness, decency, generosity, and compassion. At a moment in history when it would be easy to fall prey to doom and despair, Lucia’s work in the world is a torch that can lead us back to a remembrance of how beautiful and good humans can be.

So let us meditate this week not upon how awful humanity can be, but how good we also are. Let us find out what Love has to say about it.

Stay centered, my loves. Now more than ever.

Love,

Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know about the goodness of humanity?

Oh my precious, tender one. You have fallen prey at times to an innocent, painful, but deeply incorrect view of things — namely, that humans are a virus who ruin everything, and that because of humanity’s very existence, all is doomed, even yourselves.

But do you not understand that to give up on humanity is to give up on yourself? Do you not see how it is all one mind, galloping across the ages, creating and destroying? Do you not see that “they” are also you?

Listen, we understand. Things can look grim. And if you want to find people who agree with you that things look grim, ask anyone. Even people whose political views are the exact opposite of yours are experiencing this same sense of fear, dread, and doom — so in that regard, at least, your beliefs are in complete agreement and alignment.

In other words, what is uniting humanity right now? Terror. Terror of themselves, the world, and each other.

Sweetheart, dear heart, settle.

We could use a few people right now who aren’t terrified.

Are you wise and calm enough to become one of them?

Sit with me a moment, and let me show you something.

You humans are the most magnificent creatures we have seen yet. And yes, I know, I know: I know everything that is happening, everything your kind has done, everything that might become. I know all the nonsense and distraction, all the injustice and terror, all the suffering and all the apparently good reasons to drink from the deep well of doom.

But you are not NOT supposed to be here. And that goes for all of you. It is the deepest ignorance to imagine that the existence of even one of your kind is a mistake — and again, that goes for all of you. Yes, all of you. Every single one of you is meant to be here. Every single one of you is needed. Loved, and wanted.

Never in creation have there been minds like these human minds — these vast reservoirs of creativity and imagination, capable of dreaming up anything, from art to annihilation, from rage to forgiveness, from joy to terror, and back again. We actually revel in it, we surf upon that energy, we find it amazing.

There are only two infinitely expansive things in all of creation — the universe itself, and human imagination. Everything else has limits — but the universe, and your imaginations, have none.

So what did you think would happen, if limitless human imaginations were allowed to run free upon this planet, as they have been allowed to run free since the birth of consciousness? EVERYTHING. Everything will happen. Acts of moral beauty, as well as rampages of appalling destruction. It will all spring up, it will all play out, it will all get torn down, it will all be reborn.

We don’t ask you to be naïvely optimistic (expecting that you will get your way, in other words, and that the world will look the way you want it to) and we do not deny the awful reality of suffering. But we ask you to step back now and see the goodness that is always happening amidst the dangers of Earth. To focus only upon doom is to become demonically obsessed, single-pointed in the worst possible way, blind to the miraculous, the compassionate, and the fantastic — which are always happening not despite the darkness, but within it, alongside it, shot through the weave of existence like cords of gold.

Where is goodness to be found? Honey, everywhere. Everywhere that humans are.

Look for the goodness and it becomes obvious. Where you don’t see it, create it. Where you do see it, celebrate it. Stand in awe of it. You would be crazy not to see it, and if you ever can’t see it — look closer.

I could give you examples, but those examples would run into the millions and we don’t have that kind of time.

I only ask that you open your eyes more widely, that you wipe the fog of fear from your brain, that you recognize what is abundantly obvious to Love, at least: goodness is happening everywhere, every moment of the day, in all corners of the world, wherever your kind are to be found — right next to the darkness. In it. Always.

Believe it by seeing it. See it by believing it.

That is all.

Now go make some more goodness and beauty, and know that we love you.

Prompt

I know, it’s been rough. Regardless of our specific beliefs, it seems that we are all in a moment of heightened communal anxiety and fear. It’s all coming to a head in the days ahead, but this intensity is only the culmination of a long, long period of cultural division. So, what better time to focus our hearts on what we can appreciate about each other? Can we put away the steady drumbeat of distress and remember what connects us instead?

This week, please join me in asking this question: Dear Love, what would you have me know about the goodness of humanity?