"Free your mind, the rest will follow..."

"Stop...
in the name of Love
before you break my heart...

think it over...."

The first time I heard the cast of Glee's performance of this extraordinary mash-up version of "Stop in the Name of Love" and "Free Your Mind," I got chills.  I never would have thought to marry these two songs from such different genres of music.  But it is truly brilliant. 

It goes after the subject of judging based on "an outward sense of things" with such a clear message of Love.  I am especially touched by this lyric from "Free Your Mind":

"Before you can read me
You must learn how to see me..."

I think, for today, I am going to just let this video clip speak for itself... and invite you to join me, in pondering the liberating promise in this line:

"Free your mind,
the rest will follow..."

On every front...in our relationships with one another, our bodies, the environment, and our place in the global community...it's a message I'm taking into my heart, and striving to walk in. It resonates with all that I am learning about Love.

One of the things I have most learned...from spending much of my time with teens and young adults...is, that the thing which really breaks hearts, even more than the interplay of romantic relationships, is when someone feels judged by surface appearances. When a girl is assumed to be provocative based on her body type or clothing choices, or the label of "bad boy" is placed on a guy because if his hairstyle, the way he wears his shorts, or the music he enjoys.

I love camp for this very reason. Here, everyone is encouraged to look further, and to listen more deeply. To rend the veil of surface appearances and discover one another on a spiritual level. And there is nothing like it. To feel "seen" for who you truly are...is life-transforming. And it's a practice that every one of us can take home at the end of the session...or the summer, and share with our family, friends, and neighbors. Instead of breaking hearts, we begin to nurture them with this new approach to seeing...and being seen. Its a message of blessing. 

Since the Glee video (above) is so much fun, I am also including this clip of "Stop in the Name of Love/Free Your Mind," with the lyrics.  I don't want you to have to strain for its message of grace.  

Have a wonderful weekend.  I hope you'll give yourself the gift of a "camp" perspective. I always find it so liberating...to free my mind from the impositions of sense, so that I can soar on the thermals of Soul. It's a great place from which to see everything (and everyone), from a new, higher point of view.   And I'm finding that it's much easier to stop judging, when it's in the name of Love.  

From here on the side of a mountain, I'm just "thinkin' it over..."

lovingly,

Kate