Unstoppable Love (Part 1): The Need for Healing has Never Been Greater
“Over the past four years we didn’t just build a wall along a border, we built walls between each other.”
Today, watching the riots in our Nation’s Capitol, I realized that I need to get past my fear of talking about Unstoppable Love. Part of me hesitates to talk about it because I know that people feel uncomfortable talking about love. But, much like a physician who withholds a cure from a critical patient, it would be malpractice for me to keep my mouth shut at a time like this.
Our society has become more divisive than ever before. As we huddle into tribes on opposites side of the ring, it is altogether too easy to see others — those people — as the enemy. No matter which group we identify with, when we form a tribe, the outsiders are seen as different, as unacceptable, and usually as wrong.
To be clear, I’m a disaster doc and I don’t roll around in fluff. But, I have seen firsthand the undeniable power of Unstoppable Love in the trenches of some of the greatest international disasters of our times. A while back, I gave a TEDx talk about a guy named Augie whom I meet during my deployment to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Augie’s Unstoppable Love changed my life. It had a profound impact on me. I was the one who deployed to help. He was the one who suffered devastating loss. Yet, somehow he showed up believing that he had the power to make a difference, it wasn’t about him, and he didn’t care who got the credit. He focused on reaching out to others — including people who were different than him! — and making a difference with the paltry amount he had left. We would all do well to learn more about Augie's Unstoppable Love.
Besides my disaster work around the globe, I have also been part of a couple different communities that place a high value on Unstoppable Love. They are easy to recognize because there is an aroma of kindness, openness, and safety. Most of us continuously scan the environment asking two questions: “Can I be myself?” and “If I am myself, will people still like me?” Belonging to a community where I can be myself and still be welcome is refreshingly empowering. Being part of a community where people seek diversity, welcome everyone’s voice, and invite people to belong is refreshing and life-giving.
Unstoppable Love — a love that believes, “I have the power to make a difference. It’s not about me. And, I don’t care who gets the credit.” — shares three key ingredients: proximity, empathy, and generosity. Over the next 7 weeks, grab some friends and we’ll take a deep dive into how we can get out of our comfort zones and heal our fractured world with the only thing that truly works: Unstoppable Love.