Velcrow Ripper began to look around and realize that his spirituality and activism had been so separated, it was almost a schizophrenia in his life, so he felt the need to bring that together. His films always come from a place of his own inner journey, and then what he sees happening in the global consciousness, and they often mirror each other.
To show what these two forces can look like when they are brought together, Ripper profiles political and ecological activists such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, civil-rights leader John Lewis, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill. There is even a taste of Hollywood civil disobedience, as Daryl Hannah spends three weeks sitting in a tree on an urban farm slated for development.
Ripper’s quest intensified after his friend and fellow activist Brad Will was shot and killed in 2006 while videotaping protests in Oaxaca, Mexico. “The stakes feel so high,” Ripper says. “Dare I think about spirituality when people are actually dying? What I discovered in the course of making the film is that there is a kind of industrial-strength spirituality, a kind of industrial-strength hope, that is exactly what we need when times get tough.”
Activists need spirituality, Ripper says, partly because the process of change is at least as important as any of the outward results that it might achieve—and the process alone can guarantee a certain kind of success.
“When your process is one that’s founded on compassion and openheartedness and community and sustainability and unity, free from racism and sexism—all those things that are part of a society that many people are trying to work towards—you’re already living the change. So if you don’t succeed in a particular goal, if in your process you are living those truths, you’ve already won.”
But it is equally important, he says, that spirituality not become “overly transcendent, that it be balanced by a concern for the outside world."
“And when I talk about activism in the film and spirituality in the film, it doesn’t have to be in any way, shape, or form the more visible forms of activism. It can be just the way we live our lives, how we relate to people, coming from a place of compassion. And spirituality for me isn’t something that happens in church on Sunday. It’s about our day-to-day: how we move through our day, how present are we, how openhearted are we.”
I had an opportunity to watch this movie on the weekend...in the diverse collage of humanity, of culture, and of politics and faiths...this movie is extremely timely. As the pillars of the global economy continue teeter dangerously to the point of collapse; the chatter and noise continues around climate change all while little is being done; the voices of religious fundamentalism continue fight defending and proclaiming their brand of truth...unemployment continues as the industrial age seems to be coming to a grinding halt...but in this broken world, something is percolating from the cracks and fissures in the global village.
Mahatma Gandhi called it “soul force”. Martin Luther King had “love in action”. And now Velcrow Ripper calls it “fierce light.” We are living on a tipping point...it is a time of crisis. More than ever, it is time to move beyond politics, beyond religious isolationism, beyond race, geography, beyond ownership, beyond patriotism. It is the global village, there is no escaping that reality...there is no us, and them. We all, all humanity are in this together. Whether we survive will depend on how well we take care of the weakest in the global village. Our health depends on everyone. Our wealth, our land is for the benifit of all humanity.
The soul of humanity must become a force, not a thought, not just words...more than ever it must come to life. And, love must become action. Love your neighbor must become more than a prayer...it is the reality that a neighbor might be an enemy. The neighbor might be the homeless addict or the starving nomad in a third world country. In the global village we are all each others neighbor...boundaries and borders are erased. And in a world that is becoming seemingly darker, and fierce light can penetrate the gloom to reveal hope on the horizon of a new day.
A thought might be to order the movie, get together with friends of different faiths, neighbors, your church...watch it, and inspire, encourage one another to become Fierce Light.
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