Emma Lee Lewis was born on April 11, 1937. I learned to see the world by watching Mommy watch it. I remember her talking back to her favorite story, The Edge of Night. I remember her laughter and delight at The Supremes on The Ed Sullivan Show.
I remember when President Kennedy was killed, watching Mommy watch the coverage on our black and white television. Walter Conkrite was weeping, and so was my mom. I watched her watch the casket carried, “Hail to the Chief” played with gravity. Caroline in a dress like one of mine, John-John saluting his Daddy. She cried; I cried with her.
We watched the Southern Freedom movement unfold, brave straight-backed marchers on a highway peacefully heading to freedom and voting rights. We watched the March on Washington, we watched footage of King on a balcony, lying in his blood, Jesse and them pointing up to a window. We watched Kent State, and we watched Rodney King. We watched the police drag our neighbor out of his house and beat him for resisting, while he said over and over, “What did I do?”
Little Jacqui asked, “Mommy, can we do anything?” “‘Not right now, but we will,” she said.
Mom taught me how to see. To see what violence and hatred can do, the wounding, the killing, the maiming. To see what democracy looks like. The advocacy, the standing up for neighbor, the marching for freedom and a better world. She showed me what love looks like. Standing up, taking food to sick people, making a seat at our crowded dinner table for our neighbor’s son, so he would not be hungry and alone.
What we see today, family, is not love. It is not loving to grab people off the streets with no due process to enforce borders that keep America white. It is not loving to legislate hatred against Trans people, to erase the stories of BIPOC people, to ban books and history and blind us to our past mistakes, conscribing us to make them again. It is not loving to wreak havoc on the global economy, punishing nations like a petulant child with tariffs that devastate global markets. It is not loving to fire people and cut social service programs and impinge the flourishing of those on the margins. It is not loving to obliterate Gaza, or to be antisemitic; Jews and Palestinians are semitic. It is not loving to invade a sovereign nation like Ukraine, to build America on the back of Congo and Sudan, to ignore the plight of Haiti and nations in the global south.
It is not loving to bastardize the faith of Jesus to build a fascist regime.
To quote my friend Tituss Burgess in his song, “Love is an Action”
That ain’t love. Love is an action, a verb not just a word.
To abuse and take lightly just said to be heard
And everyday actions and reactions are chances
in making love active and not just a word
Love does not envy, it does not boast, it does not house conceit
There is no limit to God’s and Grace and
There’s nothing love can’t face
This song is the Middle Church anthem. At our annual justice conference a few years ago, Tituss sang this live. When I watch this memory of my communities — our church and our movement partners — and I weep from the power of Tituss’ voice, of our multi-all-the-things gathering. Interfaith, many gendered, all the ethnicities. I see how diversity, equity and inclusion are powerful.
Can you see this? Can you see yourself in this movement and feel your ability to change the world with love? Watch and write me in the comments. Tell me what you hear and what you see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x40Urb2F8zY.
One of my rabbis says, “A loving and ethical life is learning how to see.” How to see yourself in the mirror, and to love that self fiercely. How to see your neighbor and feel their inextricable connection to YOU. Their story is part of YOUR story. Their surviving and thriving is YOURS. Their suffering and pain is YOURS. They are your people, and you are theirs. Together, if we remember how to see these truths, we can make this world a better place.
My mommy died two weeks after her 80th birthday, April 25, 2017. I feel her in me in these times and imagine how she would grieve. I am reminded daily that she taught me to see myself as a change agent, as a love warrior, to see the world’s suffering and believe I could do something about it. This “we can love the world into healing” is the essence of the Middle Church, and honestly is the source of my hope in this hot-mess time.
Middle Church and I are coming home to love on Easter Sunday (link to press release). We see clearly that we must love the hell out of this world to counteract the hate. You are welcome to join us, exactly as you are!
Love is an action, family, not just a word. Let’s love each other. Hard.
P.S. Our next conference is Freedom Rising: The Fierce Urgency of Now, October 31-November 2. Get your ticket today!
Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is senior minister and public theologian at Middle Church in New York. She champions racial equality, economic justice, and LGBTQIA+/gender rights. Featured on MSNBC, PBS, NBC, CBS, and NPR, she is the author of several books, including “Fierce Love” and the “Just Love Story Bible.” Countless individuals and communities. She inspires through her podcast, “Love Period”; in columns and articles; and on stages, in churches, on the street, and in digital spaces around the globe.