+ Our question this week is: how can we love in the face of hostility, without becoming damaged, and without becoming retaliatory? How can we remain centered and find a core of inner peace that can make us whole and strong?

Here’s a five minute meditation that I gave in a recent sermon at St. James Presbyterian Church. It’s a version of the meditation written out below.

 

 

As we reflect on finding love in the face of hostility, let’s remember the wise words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said: “There is something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.” He was, of course, preaching about Jesus’ commandment to do the same.

Loving our enemies is always practiced in the context of loving ourselves. If someone is hurting you, it is important to get to a safe place and get help. This is loving yourself, and if you can’t love yourself by protecting yourself, then loving people who hurt you will not help them find their own humanity either.

In the Civil Rights movement, we have an example of people bonding together to confront systemic violence and hatred with a powerful “soulforce” of love. Love interrupts violence, and sometimes we need each other to help us interrupt violence. Sometimes we can’t do it by ourselves.

While communal practices of love and justice are important and necessary, there are also internal practices we can do to prepare ourselves to love in the face of hostility.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

What follows is a meditation to practice seeing the humanity in your adversary–whether it’s someone you know and love, or a stranger–and directing love rather than anger or hatred toward them. (The audio recording above is a guided version of this meditation.)

1. Begin by focusing on your heart as the center of your feelings of love.

2. See with your inner eye the beating of your heart. Imagine that it is pulsing with love. You might imagine the love as a certain color, or as light itself. If you need help feeling the love, you can imagine someone that you love, notice the sensation of love you feel toward him or her, and hold that sensation while releasing the image of the particular person.

3. Now imagine the light or color of love expanding to fill your whole chest, then your whole body. See it begin to extend out past the limits of your physical form and fill the whole room, then your whole town or city.

4. See the people everywhere in this area become enveloped in this light of love. Sit with this image for a few moments, allowing it to become stronger.

5. Now bring to mind an adversary and see him enveloped by this love as well. Know that the source of love is inexhaustible, enough to keep your heart pulsing with it forever. See the light permeating every part of your being, refreshing you. Imagine the same effect on the person you are holding in this light.

6. As a final step, begin to notice and focus on another light-the heart of the person you are embracing. Let her heart be the symbol of her inner center of goodness. Whatever it looks like, imagine that it, too, is beginning to glow.

7. As you watch, the light begins to expand and fill her chest, and then her body, and then extends beyond her body and surrounds you. Now the center of goodness- the light of the heart-of your adversary is surrounding you, and the light of your heart is surrounding her.

8. After holding this inner experience for a while, gently bring your awareness back to where you are sitting. Contemplate your experience. How does this meditation affect your feeling toward this person? The next time you are physically in her presence, remember this exercise. Bring it powerfully to mind and see whether it changes the dynamic between you.