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This morning I received an email from a friend who told me that the subject of last night�s meditation at her Buddhist center was extending metta -- or loving kindness -- to BP. Wow! I think it is wonderful that there are people in this world who are willing to seek love for the perpetuators of the worst environmental catastrophe in the history of our country. The cynical part of me also remembers that these friends are styled after the same people who were pushed out of their country by the Chinese at gunpoint.

I�m not going to get into a discussion of Buddhism here except to say I think it�s a lovely philosophy. Yet I am not sure I see the value for me to extend loving kindness to BP right now. To all of the struggling fishes and sea creatures and all of the fishermen who are out of work, plus the families of the 11 men who lost their lives and to the many volunteers who are working hard to clean up the beaches and marshes. Yes, I can see extending loving kindness to them. But BP? I�m not yet capable of that much compassion.

There�s something different I want to extend to the oil executives and it�s motivated by a tougher emotion - anger. Yet anger is one of the shadow faces of love. We feel angry when what we love is threatened. This is human. It�s also a characteristic of beings who nurture, like geese who spit to protect their goslings or fierce mama bears. It�s not the prettiest part of love or life, but there is a value to it. And anger demands respect from the originator and the bystanders.

Emotions, like anger, have the affect of gathering energy within our nervous systems. Anger is one ways we get chemically primed for a fight. This is our body�s response - it�s natural.

Yet I read some of the blogs, writings and comments by my fellow environmentalists whose emotional charge about the spill is as toxic to me as the chemicals BP is using to pollute the gulf in their feeble attempts to clean up the mess. So many people vent their anger like the broken riser on the seafloor, churning out undirected emotional energy. There are gazillions of examples of how anger is used in deconstructive ways in our culture, but how do we use our anger constructively?

As the energy of anger builds, either it must be expressed and released in some way or it has to be sublimated (as with the Buddhist meditations), or it forms a hard ball of crud in the energy body of the individual experiencing the emotion and leads to deadened states like depression.

So, in the continued catastrophe of the Deepwater Horizon, let�s use our energy to accomplish something to protect that which we love.

Let�s join the boycotts, call the White House and Congress, seek out sources of information that are telling the truth, demand that the public be kept informed, join the passionate on-line discussions on Facebook, get a more fuel efficient car, check to see if your utility company offers energy from renewable resources, and most of all commit to cutting down your use of fossil fuels by a meaningful percentage every day.

But let�s also remember that, as much as anger is the immediate motivation behind our actions, love is the motivating factor behind our anger.

And as tempting as it is to say �but yeah, it was BP�s love of money and our country�s love of cheap oil and the politicians� love of big donations that got us into this mess�, let us remember that what is being threatened are the things we love with our deepest values.

It is the clear azure waters of the ocean, the playful intelligence of the dolphins, the intricate dynamics of an ecosystem and the mysterious unnamed creatures deep on the ocean floor. It is the loyalty of men and women who take dangerous jobs to support their families, and whose way of life is being threatened. It is this earth that that is the most beautiful blue gem the divine could have gifted us with.

As we take action against BP, as we call for boycotts, as we call the White House and Congress to demand bans on offshore oil drilling, and as we talk with one another let us remember that our actions are wrapped in emotions with more force than BP�s well. And unlike BP�s well, let�s direct our energy toward something positive because after all, we are motivated by love.

Let's also remember that it is sometimes more difficult - and requires greater character - to stay with the energy love. It demands something deeper of our person to let ourselves experience the heartbreak and to take action from a place of anguished reverence than it does to indulge in the knee-jerk reaction of our nervous systems.


To read more: movebeyondit.com/blog-and-articles/html