Love is chain reaction

(and so is hate), and how we can choose love anyway

Standing at Lāʻie Point State Wayside

My phone lit up in the afternoon twilight: sister, I sent a single mom and her four kids three trays of food through Aloha Foundation.* They were in need of a hot meal in the face of the ice storm headed their way.

She reminded me that years ago, I’d done something similar for her. At that time, she was single-momming herself. I’d sent a $100 grocery store card–which lasted much longer 10 years ago than it does now (dammit inflation). It impacted her and her son deeply, she texted, because I was clear with her: don’t ever worry about repaying; someone did this for me. Maybe one day, you might end up doing this for someone else.

So, she did.

Here’s the crazy thing: I’d nearly forgotten this whole story. I now remember that once I understood her situation–and how much pressure her ex held against her neck–I didn’t think twice. I had what little means I had. An automatic gesture. And the buried pass-it-on message.

Because time hasn’t erased these memories: feeling terrorized and alone, yet masking and conducting business perfectly ‘normal’ at work during the day; sleepless, eyes-wide staring at the ceiling tethered in doubts every night. Wondering if I could be okay, just me, myself, and two littles in the next room. Panic to sanity, hope to fear, and every variation in between cycling through my body for days, weeks, months on end like a washing machine auto-rotation. I balanced all the complex uncoupling things that you must do to survive and live and care for the people you love most in the world, under threat of losing everything. Some nights I didn’t think I’d make it.

But. Unexpected generosity popped up from different people in quiet corners of my life. They showed up as a pre-planned dinner or a bag of snacks or a kid pick-up after school or a packed bento or a phone call. A card in the mail holding a check from someone who I love like my own mom, no take-backs. Together, they wove the most beautiful lauhala basket, and while it could not solve the challenges I was desperate to solve, they wrapped the three of us in safety, warmth and love. And years later I’m in a much different, although complicated place, but one that I can embrace with my whole heart - the good, the bad, and differently flavored washing machine cycles in between.

Because love is a chain reaction, it asks for nothing back, no return to sender. And this small act of kindness that popped up on my phone was evidence of another link in the chain.

(I’d end the post here, but my heart has more.)

Here’s where I think it gets dicey. I wonder, if love is a chain reaction, then the same thing happens with hate. The obvious and most identifiable proof appears in our daily news or posts or tiktoks or socials. What happened in Minnesota two days ago and on January 7th, when ICE officers killed U.S. citizens in the city streets. Watching some sides of media and politicians paint these neighbors as domestic terrorists. Simultaneously, our world observing their videos, hearing “I’m not mad at you,” before she’s shot while driving away; looking at a man lying on the ground while being shot multiple times.

Beyond our borders, we can see all the violence rocking the globe. Honestly since the beginning of time, especially when it comes to survival of the fittest. Ugly messages passed from father to son or mother to daughter; from brother to sister and back again–generational whispers of hatred for the people who don’t look like us, love like us, or worship like us. And then all the acts that drive those differences home, especially between the ones who have (or hoard) all the resources and the ones who do not. (A wholly different ss interrogation/novel here.) I actually see this as hate = pain; not an excuse, merely context to the viciousness with which people cling to and enact horror on one another. I’ve been on the receiving end; I know what some of this feels like.

We think love and hate (or pain) would be so easy to choose or distinguish, so obvious. And in some cases it really seems it is. I can see where it gets more complicated, especially when we’re swept up in both. It’s hard to disentangle, like when longshore fishing lines cross. You can’t untangle them at sea. You can’t cut them loose, either (or if you do, you’ve just ruined the lives for many an ocean creature). So you have to figure out how to haul them back to shore and figure it all out when they get there.

What do we do when people who we love, make choices that cause so much pain to the vulnerable, our neighbors, and me? What if that person was super close, like a brother? I wonder if he came into my life partly for me to grapple with just this. He made a choice that results in people I love getting hurt, but I love him. He is a kind father and devoted husband–the kind of person who would leap in front of a train to save his family (including, surprisingly, me, I think). He centers love for his family in his daily practice of life. I cannot fathom how he made that choice, not see the impact it had. But I love him as a brother.

Here’s how it usually goes with the love/hate chainlink fence: I love you. And then someone comes along and hurts you. I automatically hate the people who hurt you. (it’s kind of true, says every sister and every ride-or-die best friend in the world)

We somehow must disentangle the lines. If hate = pain. We must heal our pain.

ACIM tells us: healing does not disregard the pain that is before your eyes. The pain that is leveled into your own skin. We don’t have to be a receptacle for pain and violence, we can choose love for ourselves. That love can include safety, healing, protection. We acknowledge the pain and terror and the deep impact it has on us, learn from it, and actively choose to see beyond it, to see our whole self, our whole hearts that have love so deep, it is without end. When we’re ready, we can say: your terror and pain are not the whole definition of my worth, of who I am. Neither does my pain define you (we might think: please for the love of god, work on healing unresolved traumas).

I wonder, can we choose love despite hate? Can we choose love because of hate, so rather than tumble down a hatred auto-cycle, we can break the chain. Return to love. Return to light. That sounds like a miracle and it kind of is. This is where we can ask for a miracle and lean into the divine; this is bigger than you and me, it’s the whole planet. To be honest, it also sounds kind of exhausting.

I think we can do it, if we give our hearts and minds the space to heal. We may need to take big breaks to catch our breath, especially in the face of what we see in the world. Sometimes I lean on my people I love, to tag-team in our effort to hold love in place instead of numbness–a relay race towards peace, towards wholeness. If we get the chance to consider it, I would ask that we show up with our love and light for ourselves, because it’s showing up for each other.

Someone once told me: My deep capacity for love is because I know an almost bottomless depth of pain. I hope that’s not the takeaway, that we have to suffer to know love, I don’t think that’s quite the answer either.

I do hope we can unearth the tiniest spark of love deep within us, despite the pain we feel and see every day. Even if it’s just getting out of bed in the morning and picking ourselves up to show up in as large or small ways that we can.

Some days we can be superheroes and launch a program that supports and elevates a community group or neighborhood or entire population–like the Minnesotans who keep showing up resisting violence and authoritarianism in their city and state. Others, we can whisper a kind hello to someone who looks lonely; make that special cup of tea for them or for yourself. There is no act too small that can have a positive impact on our humanity.

Please keep showing up and shining your love and light, no matter how small it feels. Your light matters, you matter, and what may feel tiny to you, could have the deepest impact on your neighbor. These acts, your invitation for healing and love, become the chain reaction we need to see in the world. I believe in us. And I love you.

Love,

Sunnywave

*name changed