#1 “The light always gets through the cracks.”
Meandering through the streets of Porto (bc this city is old and still recovering physically and economically from a not so distant dictatorship and economic crisis) it is quite common to see images like this:

Someone pointed them out to me as “signs of the Resistance” and since then I can’t help but notice these “signs” everywhere.

Flowers and greenery bursting through crumbling walls. This is the Resistance my friends, this is Love. It always gets through cracks.

#2 Receiving Love is an act of Resistance
A client recently taught me this in a coaching session. As these words emerged we both felt their deep truth and relevance.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I know DOING things and SHOWING UP in solidarity is important, but what if just as important, just as radical is not participating in the frenzy? What if slowing down, receiving love from whatever source it is being offered to you (or in whatever form you can give it to yourself) is the form of resistance that will most transform us – personally and collectively? It’s hard to be hateful when experiencing love. Here’s to being brave and vulnerable enough to let LOVE in – what ever that might mean for you right now.

#3 My next door neighbor is 93 years old. I am the first American she has ever met/known and she has welcomed me to her country, into her kitchen and as her friend and neighbor with an open heart (and with weekly gifts of soup, fruit, antique dishes, ice-cream, you name it).

Her love has enveloped me and she has become a consistent, beloved piece of my new life here. I can only hope that when I am at her stage of life that I will be oozing love and hospitality to my neighbors, whoever they might be and in whatever small or big acts of kindness I have available to me.

This woman, who rarely leaves the 10 block radius of this neighborhood, whose mother died giving birth to her, who never had a family of her own, who has lived through an unkind dictatorship is to me a sign of Love and the Resistance.