Where are the love preachers?

Hi, well not you, and you and you. This is for the greater public to chew on. Where are the love preachers, the fully qualified and respected religious and non religious humans demonstrating all around the world love, tolerance and compassion. Any leads?

Oh yeah, well there are loving Buddhists. Some but not all Buddhists demonstrate such perpetual positive love vibes that I am hinting at. Yes, I agree. To play devil’s advocate, however I ask, outside the buddhist center, where do I tune into love preaching and practice, made to reach all the divided people? Yes, sure, everybody should take a look at basic Buddhist doctrine and adopt and learn from their well versed practical systems, which include attention to mind body speech, and techniques to train and relax. To work to attain clarity of beingness, all the good stuff. Yes. If you can turn Netflix off, and get away from Instagram and snapchat, Buddhist teachings teach and preach love. I answered my own question, but remain unsatisfied when I look around at the chaos and division, the ideology and entrenched positions. The lack of willingness to accept new data, instead, preferring to stand solid like a rock, unmoving.       

The unfortunate truth that I deduce in the land of Trump and Brexit, reflects an atmosphere of nihilism. A case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What I see as a new combination of groupthink and nihilism, “it’s all fucked”, “All politicians are the same”, “All religions are crazy” “All poor people are stupid”, “all bankers are criminals”. The hopeless require love, crushing fierce love that sneaks upon their being, gifting them with understanding, a two-way conversation in the interests of peace throughout the nation.

All convictions make convicts. I digress, here I’m trying to refine my theme, where are the love preachers (in popular culture) these days. Some might say Russell Brand, and I agree that from a UK perspective, he fits the role. If we can overlook his history, check our ignorance, Big Brother, and Ms. Perry, I can agree that yes, Rusty Rockets demonstrates a consistent compassion in his public facing, often independently crafted communiques. Plus he preaches in some sense, he’s not afraid to speak with an instructive tone and authority, which I feel is important here. He’s not a performance poet, yet still exhibits a playful prose. Kudos. Besides Russell Brand, then, who and where are the UK love preachers, and where is the support, the resources and the platforms for such needed love preaching training? We need a planning committee for huge future love preach events at this critical moment in UK history. I call for a new love-in, a new trans-love energy field. Fight tight fists with open arms, fight lies and coercion with relative truths and invitations to think. Leaving and arriving is a part of the process.   

I’m talking about Curtis Mayfield love, about unconditional love for all sentient beings, Rumi love, the love and forgiveness and understanding often ascribed to angels, but clear and present and without doubt, dancing on the tip of the tongue of our leaders, and public intellectuals and representatives. We need love training camps, love to mean understanding and tolerance, a love rehabilitation movement from coast to coast, continent to continent. As Bill Hicks said, “love all the people”. Teach them by example, love to mean acceptance, love to mean fierce blessing and passionate expression. We need trans love energies in all our hearts and bodies and minds.

And where possible, scientific love, exploration of synonyms for love and the introduction of love’s sibling, peace. All words that connect positive actions, all the ways of othering. Know thyself, love others when you find intellect.

My own feelings, due to my model agnostic outlook, and willingness to adopt and even believe (temporarily) almost anything, religious ideas like infallibility, spiritual practices like meditation, falsification theory and scientific reasoning, suspension of judgement. The joy of philosophy for me, and the study of consciousness, and social psychology and art and poetry, and music, is to discover new ideas, new arguments, new data. I maybe overly afflicted with forces of neophilus, and less willing than most to adopt a conservative attitude. However, any path forward for the unity of people and cultures divided by political matters, must include othering. We must be able to listen, at least, to the other point of view. And this may require some very clever, smart and collaborative intelligence from independently minded, everyday compassionate people. What I’m calling love preachers.

I am willing to go that extra few yards here, and remind you that loving thy enemy can be fun and in fact, at its most potent thrives on comedy, laughter, and mockery of the opposite, and opposing forces of love, and peace. To mean, prejudice, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia are targets for any love preacher, serious about contributing something useful to society now. Today. Unlike many other religious organizations and government departments, who continue to make grande claims about moral and ethical superiority, and use the same words such as love, peace, justice, but in a different context, the new love preacher stands dogma free. The love preacher avoids absolutes, and communicates in a probability informed language of nuance, and prose.  

Get out there and preach love, man, get up in the face of the people with unusual understanding and examples of tolerance. In love you will find optimism, in optimism, love. Speak truth to power, sing sweet to sour, sing songs of sunshine during an unexpected April shower.

–Steve Fly