Tonight I did something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before: I watched a video of a talk that I gave back in October. Today is Valentine’s Day, and although love is something we celebrate every day at Education and Hope, there is a lot of heaviness in the world right now. Worse, for months and months, I have been too far away from my community to feel that love in person. I remembered that when I was preparing for this talk last October, I was also feeling caught in a swirl of intense emotions. I wrote that when so much fear and suffering is happening all around us, it can be hard to create space for the compassion and love we are called to embody in the world.
So tonight, for inspiration, my thoughts turned to Wilson, the student at the center of this talk. Wilson is someone faced with challenges beyond the scope of anything I have ever had to navigate. Now as a listener, I sunk myself into this story about courage and strength and how we love each other into being. I felt the solidarity of the vast network of good people who make our work possible. I was reminded that I do not walk alone.
I hope that you can find some time to listen and get to know Wilson through this story. I hope, like me, you feel uplifted by the transformative power of love, the life force being shared in the community we have created together.
