Yesterday in a Zoom meeting with people from all over the country, I heard many stories about people’s experience of this pandemic. There were horrifying stories, unbearably sad stories, and also truly hopeful stories. But what I ended up thinking about most was one woman’s story of seeing people getting into fist fights about wearing or not wearing masks. Both sides in equal fear and anger physically fighting with one another!! A few other people in the group nodded — having seen this, too.
The person who shared this said how broken hearted it made her: How have we come to this? How do we not understand that we’re in this together, and the only way we’re going to get out of this is together?
It immediately brought to mind the kind of sci fi story that most of us loved as kids. We’re all abandoned on a dangerous planet and we either have to band together and survive, or dissolve into hatred and enmity and die. We love those kinds of stories. Well, right now, we’re all living one.
I’d been thinking about this because I went inside a store yesterday afternoon for the first time since March. It was a small store with one person working there. We interacted fairly closely, and he was not wearing a mask. I was, since that is what is being asked of us. The only other person who came in was wearing a mask, too.
A few days earlier, I had been at a store with curbside pickup. The two people with whom I interacted had been wearing masks, but frankly they might as well not have been. One had her nose sticking out, and the other hung off her face like a loose-fitting garment. But the masks were on in spirit!
I found myself feeling judgmental of the person without the mask and feeling good about the two with flimsy sloppy masks. Which made me realize where my judgment came from in the first place. If someone wasn’t wearing a mask, I was judging them as being thoughtless and unconcerned about the well being of their fellow human beings. But as I discovered in last week’s car battery interaction, that simply isn’t true. Some people can’t breathe and do their work with mask. Some people can’t make themselves heard. And in many cases, since there is no concrete leadership and messaging about masks, some people just don’t understand the point at all.
Which means the decisions are left to individuals. And then, as if often the case, that comes down to fear or Love. For me as well. So, am I choosing fear or Love?
At the simplest level, I have been trying to be guided by two simple ideas: Never judge someone else. You have no idea why they make the choices they do. And then to behave myself with consideration, kindness, and prudence.
But after yesterday afternoon, I knew that didn’t go far enough.
Then last night I heard something that really went in deep. This is what I heard: The only vaccine that can truly be effective is the vaccine of Truth.
When I heard that phrase, I literally pictured an inoculation. I saw a gold liquid flood through everyone’s bodies — and I saw that beautiful gold liquid become a bright light. And I knew that light was Love. It was the Truth that would allow all of us to realize that we ARE all in this together. That we ARE One. That we can ONLY be One. We can never be these seemingly separate material bodies with wildly differing ideas, viewpoints, political beliefs, personal needs, cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities.
When I pictured that (this is MY sci fi movie), I felt this complete sense of relief. And even JOY!
Imagine if that could happen and in one shot all the lies of thousands of years of history could be undone and we could live in Love!
Well, that’s a lovely story, you might say. Try selling it to the networks. But what does that have to do with what we’re all going through now.
Good question. And what does it have to do with how I support small businesses who need my support in a state where face masks are recommended but not mandatory?
As I lay in bed this morning quietly listening for an answer this is what I heard. Loud and clear.
See each and every person you encounter as a carrier of good, Only. See them as their Truest Self. Hold them in their Highest Light. And then listen for what you need to hear about how to interact with them so that you inject the vaccine of the Truth into every encounter, every interaction, every conversation.
Let Truth ripple out as Love.
Which means be the Love that we are all One. Speak the Love that we are all One. Know the Love that we are all One. Trust the Love that we are all One.
That last one is the kicker.
TRUST.
There’s a lot of talk about vaccines. About civil rights. About Big Pharma. About the efficacy of something created at “warp speed”.
The Truth that Love is All IS our Civil Right.
The Truth that Love is All was created by something even bigger than Big Pharma.
And the Truth that Love is All was created both at warp speed and in infinity.
This is the ONLY thing we can trust.
In Love we Trust.
Perhaps this sounds like crazy talk to you, but honestly, Love IS the only thing I know I can trust.
The Truth that Love is all will lead me to do what is necessary and will whisper in my ear when I need to walk another way. BUT it will only do it if I trust and listen and lean and, most of all, LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.
So that’s my ripple effect heart-centered practice that I plan to practice today.I am going to ripple out Truth as Love by seeing everyone as we are seen by Love: We are ALL carriers of good.
Will you join me? Together let’s be carriers of good and let Truth ripple out as Love.