I love February. For me, it is a celebration of many things: love, Valentine’s Day, grand gestures, sweet sentiments, glitter, and chocolate. But this February, love feels deeper and more urgent. The world we face is heavy. We are witnessing wars, division, a dismantling of human rights, and the erasure of entire communities. Fear is being weaponized, and silence is being used as a shield. These “unprecedented times” are far from unprecedented - while history doesn’t repeat itself, it often rhymes or, perhaps, echoes.
Over the past decade, I have found myself thinking more and more about Dr. Martin Luther King's teachings. Dr. King called us to a love that is radical, action-driven, and rooted in justice—a love that will not stay silent in the face of oppression.
Because silence has never been neutral. Silence is complicity.
AIDS activists in the U.S. understood this with the creation of the haunting poster “Silence = Death”—a rallying cry against the indifference and inaction that allowed an epidemic to devastate the LGBT community. “Good Germans” during Nazi rule might not have supported the horrors and cruelty unfolding around them, but their silence allowed for the extermination of 6 million Jews and millions of others. The Richmond Enquirer published an Editorial in 1856 with the following, “Democratic liberty exists solely because we have slaves…freedom is not possible without slavery.” Personal freedom cannot come at the cost of another’s. Dehumanization - the ways which humans have tried to strip their brothers and sisters of rights, dignity, and their existence - is nothing new. Why does it continue?
Desmond Tutu invoked us: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” Love with accountability means not only standing with those who are suffering but also questioning the roots of systems that create harm. When we stay silent, when we look away, when we decide that certain fights are not ours to fight—we are participating in that dehumanization of others and ourselves, whether we intend to or not.
Dr. King warned, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Our fates are tied together, whether we acknowledge it or not. If we are to love fully, we must love courageously—by speaking up and refusing to let silence be the final word. Love is not passive, nor is it permissive. Love demands action and accountability. Love does not excuse harm or turn away from injustice in the name of tolerance. Love holds people and systems responsible—not out of revenge, but out of the belief that truth and justice are necessary for real healing and change.
As we celebrate love, I invite you to think about love in its totality. Where are we allowing silence to be our response? How can we love more boldly? How can we turn love into action?
Because love is not just a feeling, it is a responsibility. And sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is to refuse to be silent.
xoxo,
Meghan
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