Sipping my first coffee this morning, I realized I hadn’t walked among trees since Monday. Obviously, I had to remedy that. As I walked along one of my two favorite, near-by places to be among trees, I thought about a million things, first Annie Dillard because I can’t walk a path in nature regularly without meditating on Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and eventually working my way around to love and friendship – hardly a surprise given my current readings.

Ouiser visited for five blessed days this past week. Amidst all the fun and excitement, we, of course, managed a few serious conversations trying to come to terms with the chaos that seemingly envelops everything right now. We even found some calm among that storm walking this same path.

I’m still thinking and reading about love. Still crafting what I have to say about how love reveals itself through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility.

Recently, as I scrolled through Instagram videos, I am across one of a young woman who said that the more she really listened to men, the less she considered herself a feminist. It was click bait designed to create a scuffle. As I walked today, I realized what I found so terribly sad about the video – change requires the exact opposite of what this young woman outlined. The more I engage with men, listen deeply to them, and see the consequences of capitalist, patriarchal structures in their lives, the more deeply I commit to feminism.

My copy of Feminism is for Everybody is stuck on the shelf in my office. If I ever get back there, I may pick it up and return to this idea for further discussion. As hooks establishes, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. Today, I’m bringing it up, because I am thinking about that connection between knowing and loving. It’s no secret that gender influences why, how, and where communities choose to resist sexist, capitalist, and patriarchal structures or that pitting people against each other across race, class, and gender lines is one tactic to keep people from uniting to demand substantive change. It made me sad to see the tactic still working.

As I walked and thought of love and knowing, I also thought of how the work of knowing is as gendered as the work of caring. Women know men; they have to, their lives often depend on knowing how the men around them think and feel. Women know sexism; they live with the most immediate consequences of it and those consequences deepen and sharpen as they intersect across race, class, and sexuality. Feminists have also been vocal about these consequences throughout history. Yet, very few people men and women alike, have taken the time to know feminists and feminism. To believe women, as the #MeToo movement asked. To turn knowing into action and into responsibility to create change that will benefit everybody.

Today, as I walked through the blanket of leaves so thick that it was easy to lose the path, I wanted to post the beauty. To remember that these beautiful moments when we walk a path alone and the moments when we are blessed enough to share a path with a friend, are what we labor for. We must labor to know one another and for that knowing to become a part of an active love for one another.