Until we are all free, none of us are free.

~Emma Lazarus
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Since July 4, I’ve been on the road, in the air, on the rails, and on the water.

My epic journey began from Lamy, New Mexico on the afternoon of Independence Day (which I prefer to think of as Interdependence Day). My dear friends Gina and Jami saw me off at the Amtrak train station in tiny Lamy. By the next morning, I was in Pasadena, California, to spend a couple of days with my mom and dad.

Then on July 7, I boarded a plane to Bangkok, and have been here in Thailand since July 9. I spent a couple of days in huge Bangkok (which felt like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New Orleans all rolled into one city), trying to find my way around. That was pretty much a futile effort. When I realized that I simply surrendered, found the Chao Phraya river that runs through the city, and enjoyed hopping on and off bus boats and eating delectable food. Then I headed to the quieter northern part of the country.

My main purpose in coming to Thailand is to teach a workshop on socially engaged Buddhism at the International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice, a wonderful center located just north of Chiang Mai. I came here two years ago and wrote this piece about Ouyporn Khuankaew, a remarkable woman who is one of IWP’s co-founders.

This year, a number of you contributed to a travel fund to help me get here, and I am deeply grateful for your generosity.

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with Ouyporn and Venerable Dhammananda, the first Thai woman to receive full ordination as a monk in this country where there is so much suppression of women’s rights. As you can see from the photo above, both of these courageous women have absolutely luminous spirits. That is so often the case with people who are absolutely committed to freedom, internal and external.

During these last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the interconnected nature of freedom, about how important it is for us to show up for each other in our struggles for liberation.

A few weeks ago as we heard the news about the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality, we celebrated that huge breakthrough. But that very same week the same court gutted one of the most important provisions from the Voting Rights Act. Then just this past week, many of us were outraged and devastated by the decision in Trayvon Martin’s case. Could there be a more clear example that while we’re making progress on some fronts, we have such a long way to go on others?

As part of preparing to offer this workshop that starts tomorrow, I’ve been reading a book about Bayard Rustin, one of the most important leaders of the civil rights movement – who you’ve probably never heard of. Rustin was the moving force behind many of the most successful justice events of the Twentieth century, including the 1947 Freedom Riders bus campaign and the 1963 March on Washington DC.

The reason why Rustin’s role was so hidden? He was an openly gay man. Rustin knew with painful intensity what it was like to be a member of more than one oppressed group, and he clearly saw the linkages between things.

Later in his life as he became more active in the fight for gay rights, Rustin said,

The major lesson I had learned in fighting for human rights for 50 years for people all over the world: No group is ultimately safe from prejudice, bigotry, and harassment so long as any group is subject to special negative treatment.

A number of years ago I became familiar with the work of Jobs with Justice, a labor organizing group. JwJ invites its members to become aware of each others’ struggles and then make a promise to show up for each other. This is the JwJ pledge:

During the next year, I will be there at least five times for someone else’s fight, as well as my own. If enough of us are there, we’ll all start winning.

I really love that.

Imagine how the world might be different if we started actively reaching out across to each other across the lines that often divide us and lending a hand when it really counts.

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