Whenever my best friend is really struggling with something huge in her life, she refers to it as being “down on her knees”.

What she means is that she is humbly and without resistance in submission to whatever she needs to learn spiritually from this experience — and that she is turning over her human will to her Higher Power.

I grew up in a church where we only got down on our knees the pray twice a year on what was called Communion Sunday. Communion means the exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, particularly spiritually. To get down on your knees in communion with God or Love or Spirit and with your fellow churchgoers felt like a deeply humble act. I always looked forward to that Sunday because it felt like such a relief to kneel and get quiet and humble and willing and let go of my human will and worry.

This week we have all been seeing powerful and hopeful images of police officers kneeling in front of or with protesters to acknowledge their communion and solidarity in the protests against racism in this country.

But when black athletes take a knee during the national anthem, it is seen as divisive and unpatriotic. In the case of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, it cost him his career.

When something bad happens, people often say to one another: You are in my thoughts and prayers.

That is now derided as not being enough — even though there are many of us for whom prayer is not lip service. It is deep and humble communion with Divine Love in the service of transformation and healing.

Prayer may have become a catchall phrase, but that’s not what it has to be.

Mahatma Gandhi who led a civil rights movement that changed his nation knew: “Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”

Abraham Lincoln, who was president during the US Civil War said about prayer: “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”

And John Lewis, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s believed: “Without prayer, without faith in the Almighty, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings.”

Yesterday social media was blacked out. It was a great symbolic gesture — just as kneeling as become a symbolic gesture. But are symbolic gestures enough? They are certainly a start.

But for real transformation to happen, I believe that we must all be down on our knees both in humility and in prayer to the Love that is the only thing that can heal all our wounds.

We are living in a country where at the highest level there is no heart-centered Love-based leadership. So it is up to each of us to love even more. To get down on our knees and acknowledge our part in the problems. To get down on our knees in humility and honesty. To get down on our knees in deep conversations about change. To get down on our knees and invoke the Love that can heal. And to keep getting down on our knees in communion, solidarity, and prayer.

And then, when we rise up from our knees go out and live Love.

No exceptions.

Lead in Love.

Listen in Love,

Lean into Love.

Learn from Love.

And live Love.

Until Love becomes all there is.

Love will ask us to speak Truth.

Love will ask us to stand up against injustice.

Love will ask us to call out hypocrisy.

But mostly Love will ask us to love.