Lifetime Practice Valarie Kaur (USA

Valarie Kaur From See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love pp 299-300

Editor’s Note: I have been blessed to walk for a while along life’s pathways with Valarie Kaur, to be inspired by her wisdom born from a life lived deeply, and to be called to action in the spirit of a revolutionary love that she so powerfully embodies. Now through her remarkable book See No Stanger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love from which this quote is drawn, others can share in her journey and be inspired by her teachings. Valarie is a midwife to the movement for more peaceful and just societies. By sharing her story with us in See No Stranger, she invites us to see in our own lives and in our relationships with one another that “laboring in love is how we birth the world to come.”

After Papa Ji died, I thought that he left me without teaching me the secret to his bravery. Then I realized that his final lesson was the way that he died. If I wanted to live and die as bravely as he did, I had to practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. “This of today as an entire lifetime,” wise Woman says to me before I fall asleep.

“What was the hardest part of this lifetime?” Notice where you sense hardship in your body. Now how did you get through it? We somehow managed to make it to the end of this day, the end of this lifetime.

“What was the most joyful part of this lifetime?” Every day and every lifetime, now matter how hard, contains moments of joy. “Notice what made it joyful. Sense what joy feels like in your body.”

“What are you not grateful for in this lifetime?” Every day and every lifetime offers a new reason for gratitude. “Sense that gratitude in your body.”

“Now you are ready to let go of this lifetime? Are you ready to think of the work you have done today and know that it is enough?

Are you ready to behold everyone and everything you have ever known and loved, kiss them, and let them go? Are you ready to die that kind of death?”

Each night, I die a kind of death. Each morning, I wake to the gift of a new lifetime. In between, I labor in love. It is enough.” ²

Valarie Kaur is a renowned civil rights leader, lawyer, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and best-selling author of SEE NO STRANGER. She leads the Revolutionary Love Project to reclaim love as a force for justice. In the wake of the 2016 election, her question “Is this the darkness of the tomb – or the darkness of the womb?” reframed the political moment and became a mantra for people fighting for change. She founded Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Yale Visual Law Project to inspire and equip advocates at the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and justice. Valarie has been a regular TV commentator on MSNBC and contributor to CNN, NPR, PBS, the Hill, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post. Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School. Valarie’s debut book, SEE NO STRANGER: A Memoir & Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, was released in 2020 and expands on her “blockbuster” TED Talk.

UWC-USA Student Reflections