"What breaks your heart?" That's a question spiritual author and teacher Andrew Harvey tells people to ask themselves if they want to be a "sacred activist"--a term he coined about aligning your "grounded spiritual vision" with your service to the world.
The notion of sacred activism reminds me a little of the old rally poster: "Fighting for peace is like f$%#!ing for virginity." To truly serve we must come from heart and compassion, or else we're just perpetuating conflict. It's not new--this is what the likes of MLK and Gandhi spoke of and lived by-- but this question (I think), is designed to cut through the modern-world overwhelm of "What should I do to help?" Because at least for me there are so many things that are broken, breaking, and in need of tending--global poverty and famine, environmental destruction, sex trafficking, torture, war, the Texas-sized blob of plastic in the ocean, etc.--that when I think about where to serve, I shut down like a little kid in the cereal aisle, dazed by the endless boxes.
But "What breaks your heart?" is maybe one way out of the cycle. Last night at an event for Buddhist Global Relief, a non-profit that gives grants to address world hunger, Andrew spoke about how the world is in crisis and we all need to kick our apathy to the curb and do something. Now. He's not a total gloom-and-doomer, though. His latest book, "The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism," outlines practical ways we can align our soul and spirituality with the service we give to the world.
In his lovely, activating, howling talk last night, he suggested that it's possible to step away from "the collective false human self that has lost connection to our own sacred nature." To take advantage of an "unprecedented opportunity... to turn apocalypse into grace." He said one way to begin is: Wake up at 3 am one night, and in the silence ask yourself: "What of all these causes breaks my heart the most?" And then "you will find the deepest, most radiant voice of your soul," allowing you to then "join other people of like heartbreak and do something real."
I tend to walk away from such events swimming in shame. Why don't I volunteer? Why don't I give? Why am I such a total loser, so completely caught up in consumer culture, corporate-driven perfectionism, yadda, that I feel like I have no time or energy to give? This was no different. Surrounded by people who serve so directly, I felt like, "Um, well, I have this blog and I have a gratitude blog and I write articles on communication and yoga and love and, and, yeah. Um, squeak, don't mind me as I take and don't give." And then I berate myself for self-indulgently wasting time stewing in those thoughts instead of signing up for something real. Oy.
When I told someone (ok, my shrink) about all of this today she asked, "Do you pick up trash in the street?" Well, actually last week I picked up a big hunk of glass on the sidewalk because it looked dangerous. "Ok," she said. "That's not nothing." And she listed a bunch of other little things that I do that might just count as service, including my writing. "From this chair I see so many people devaluing what they offer," she said. And this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote came to mind: