Blaze it Forward

I would like to share with you a wonderful story about the phenomenal power of kindness to heal us in this time of great upheaval, polarization and violence. Before I do it is important to see that it is not just our time that is so crazy. This has happened throughout human history.  Systematically, anybody that is different than we are, like a different religion, gender, skin color, or sexual orientation, have been judged, persecuted and even murdered, not only by ourselves but also by people in power. 

But all of this ‘them and us,’ all this seeing other people as objects in our minds rather than the subjects of our hearts, is like a pimple that’s coming to a head.  This is evident not only in so many mass shootings and school shootings, but also in the propagation of hate groups all over the world. But we don’t have to be powerless in the face of this. Rather than seeing this as life falling apart, we can begin to see it as life coming together, coming together in the human heart that knows that even though we have so many differences, we have much more in common. 

The healing that is asking to come out of this time is so clearly seen in the life of Blaze Bernstein. He was a 20-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania.  Interviewing his friends and loved ones, they are in complete agreement: he was an amazing, creative, smart, heart-oriented human being. One-of-a-kind! He also happened to be gay and Jewish.  

There was a student called Samuel Woodward who, for a short period of time, attended the same high school Blaze did. Sam had the opposite kind of life – withdrawn, angry and troubled. He eventually found his way to Atomwaffen, an extreme neo-Nazi organization that makes the Alt-Right look like the PTA. Their core intention is to abolish the US, focusing on annihilating gays and Jews. There is no accident that the word Atomwaffen means atomic destruction.  

In January 2018, when Blaze was visiting his family on winter break, Sam invited him to go for a walk in their hometown of Lake Forest, California. And of course, Blaze went missing. When they finally found his body four days later, he had been stabbed in his throat 19 times. With much compelling evidence, Sam was charged in the murder of Blaze as Atomwaffen celebrated Blaze’s death on social media. 

Watch what is happening inside of you as you read this.  Are you feeling fear about the actions of such an extreme neo-Nazi group? Is your mind reacting in anger, wanting to annihilate them? It is so easy to react, but then we go to their level.  What we need to do instead is become smarter, for any time we resist and try to destroy what is destructive, we only empower it. 

This is where Blaze’s family rises to the challenge. Instead of living in reaction, they chose to respond by channeling their grief into kindness. They have created a Blaze It Forward organization that is all about fostering kindness in the world. They focus on foster kids and at-risk youths and they also gather money for scholarships.  

Blaze It Forward is so much more than a slogan to his parents, friends and loved ones. It has become a calling. His mother said, “This is my piece in repairing the world in his honor and to promote his legacy.” Now, in the park where Blaze was murdered, people leave rocks – dozens and dozens of rocks – that have all been painted with loving messages, many of them with the slogan Blaze It Forward.  

So, I invite you to become a part of the wave of kindness that can make such a difference in our world right now. If it calls to you, find some paint or maybe indelible markers and some rocks. Then listen to your heart and write on them messages of kindness. And then take these rocks with you when you go out into the world and leave them in parks, among the magazines at your doctor’s office, at the beach, in the bathroom at work and even by your front door. Get very creative about where you put these hidden messages of kindness. 

It is kindness that can heal this challenging time and your kindness matters! It is also very helpful to ask life, “How can I bring kindness into the world?” Yes, it is challenging to meet people you react to with your heart rather than your reactive mind, but it is possible to open your heart to even the most difficult people in your life. To begin to cultivate the art of responding rather than reacting is one of the most healing things a human being can do.  

When I realized I didn’t need to heal the whole world, but I could learn how to meet whatever was showing up inside and outside of me with my heart, I felt such relief.  I felt I could truly make a difference by discovering, over and over again, how to respond rather than react. And a little bit of heart goes a long way in healing the chaos we are in right now.     

At the end of the last week’s blog, I shared with you what feels like one of the core messages we need to hear at this time, the quote from the Dhammapada.  I first heard of this through Jack Kornfield who told the story of Maha Gosananda.  Maha was a Cambodian monk who was in a refugee camp where thousands of Cambodians fled the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime.  He called upon the people to gather for a Buddhist ceremony.  The soldiers roaming through the encampment swore that anybody who went would be killed.  The next day over 10,000 refugees converged at the tiny temple the monk had built.  As he chanted the invocations that started the ceremony, people began to weep.  They had been through so much, lost so much, and now they were risking their lives for this all-important connection with their religion which had been suppressed by Pol Pot.  Maha went on to chant this verse from Buddhist scripture: 

Hatred never ceases by hatred; but by Love alone is healed.  This is an ancient and eternal law. 

Over and over again these people, who had lost everything and had every reason to rage and hate, chanted with him, moving into the knowing that all healing happens in the heart. 

In what looks like a breakdown time but is really a breakthrough time, we need your heart!