Valarie Kaur is met with cheers of confirmation as she speaks about minorities in the following video. In this she ties her Sikh faith in with modern issues and reaches the hearts of this vocal minority group.
"Yes Rabbi, the future is dark, on this watch night, I close my eyes and I see the darkness of my grandfather's cell. And I can feel the spirit of ever rising optimism (in the Sikh tradition 'Chardi Kala') within him. So the mother in me asks, 'What if? What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?.... What is this is our country's great transition?"
In a matter of hours, our next president will place his hand on a Bible and speak an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It is an oath sworn many times throughout history, but never before by a person whose ideas represent such a direct threat to the Constitution.
I share your sadness and anger, uncertainty and pain. I am not asking you to suppress these emotions — I’m asking you to honor them and choose love anyway.
Love is not a passing feeling; it is an act of will. It is the choice to extend our will for the flourishing of others and ourselves. When we pour love in places where there is fear and rage, we can transform an encounter, a relationship, a culture, a country. Love becomes revolutionary.
On Inauguration Day, as the new president is sworn in, we have an opportunity to make our own oath. We can vow to uphold the values enshrined in our Constitution — equality, liberty and justice. We can choose to fight for our communities in a way that does not mirror the hate and vitriol we oppose. We can make an oath to enter this new era with Revolutionary Love.
