Living From What You Are For
A Meditation by Rev. Cameron Trimble
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller
Last week, I had the good fortune to spend time in conversation with global activist and author, Lynne Twist.1
Lynne has seen things most of us have not. She has been in places where children are starving. She has walked through rainforests that have been cut down to nothing. She has stood with people whose lives have been torn apart by war. She does not speak about injustice from a distance.
So when she said, “I’m a pro-activist,” I listened closely.
At first, it sounded like a shift in emphasis. Focus on what you are for instead of what you’re against. But that’s not what she meant.
Lynne is not someone who has stepped away from what she is against. She has too much clarity for that. The suffering she has witnessed demands a response.
But what shapes her life is not reaction. She is drawn by a vision.2 She has given her life to commitments she knows she will not complete. That is how she understands a committed life: not something you finish, but something that organizes you. It tells you where to go, who to stand with, what to build, and what to refuse.
That is different from reacting to what is wrong. It is living from what must become.
We have a lot to be upset about these days. Our anger is not the enemy. It’s a signal. It lets us know when something’s wrong, when something we care about is being hurt. It shows us what we love. In that way, anger acts like a guardian. It stands up for what matters and won’t let it be harmed without a response. That’s not something we should get rid of. But a guardian can’t be your whole life.
If anger takes over, it starts to fight everything. It looks for battles because that’s what it knows. It can forget what it was trying to protect in the first place.
You can sense when this happens. Everything starts to feel like something to fight. Your temper flares, your imagination shrinks, and you end up reacting instead of creating.
This is the shift Lynne is talking about. Being a “pro-activist” means letting your heartbreak and anger show you what you love, and then staying focused on that. It means letting what you support become your starting point.
Lynne says, “I think a conscious leader is also someone who’s committed to something way larger than their own life, way larger than their own company, committed to some stand or vision greater than they can accomplish in their lifetime so their identity isn’t based in it. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela and Jane Goodall and the people we truly admire are up to something larger than their own life, and their life is a contribution to that continuum rather than their identity.”3
That kind of commitment requires something more than reaction; it requires imagination. bell hooks wrote, “What we cannot imagine cannot come into being.” If we can’t name the world we want, we’ll keep circling what we oppose and reacting to the same patterns, instead of building something new.
So the question becomes very practical:
What are you really building?
Where are you putting your time?
What are you making stronger in the world right now?
These questions are part of resistance. They’re what give resistance meaning. The goal isn’t just to stop harm. The goal is to make something better possible.
That is a different kind of courage. It stays close to what is broken without letting it set the direction. It lets heartbreak clarify what matters, but it does not live there. It is organized by a commitment.
A commitment that may take a lifetime.
A commitment you may never see completed.
A commitment that begins to shape who you become.
I see that in Lynne. She does not wait for conditions to improve. She does not organize her life around what she opposes. She gives herself to what she knows must grow, and she stays with it long enough for something real to take root.
That is the work. May it be so for all of us.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
What are you against right now, and what does that reveal about what you love?
Where has your anger started to narrow your attention or imagination?
What are you for, and how is that shaping your actual choices?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer for Freedom from Possession
God, there is so much right now that pulls at our anger. We see what is broken. We feel it in our bodies. We know what we stand against. Do not take that clarity from us. But do not let it consume us either. Turn us, again and again, toward what we love. Toward what is worth protecting. Toward what is worth building. When we grow tired, steady us. When we lose our way, reorient us. When our anger begins to narrow our vision, widen it again. Give us the courage to keep showing up, not only to resist what harms, but to live into what heals. Let our lives take shape around what is good. Amen.
Spiritual Practice
Reorienting Your Attention
Set aside ten to fifteen minutes today. Begin by naming one thing that is making you angry right now. Be specific. Write it down. Let yourself feel it without rushing past it.
Then ask a second question: What does this anger reveal that I love?
Stay with that. Do not settle for a quick answer. Let the connection become clear. If you are angry about injustice, what is the form of justice you long for? If you are angry about harm, what kind of care are you committed to?
Write that down too.
Now shift your attention.
Ask: What is one way I can give my energy to this today?
Keep it concrete: something you can actually do. A conversation. A choice. A commitment. An act of care. A small step toward building what you just named.
Do it.
At the end of the day, return to what you wrote. Notice what changed. Notice where your energy went.
This is how you begin to live from what you are for, not by abandoning your anger, but by letting it point you toward something larger, and then staying there.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
My team and I launched a new experiment we are calling “The Commons.” It’s an online space centered around communities of practice: groups of people who share a common concern, set of problems, or passion for a topic, and deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. Join the community here.
NEW!!! April 14, 2026, 11am ET - FREE WEBINAR - I will be joined by Rev. Shawna Bowman, an amazing artist and pastor of Friendship Presbyterian Church, for a conversation about art as resistance and what it means to show up as a creative individual in a world in need of justice. Shawna will be leading a community of practice starting in April on the Commons. If you want to learn more, register here.
NEW!!! On July 19-24, 2026, I’ll be leading a Women’s Wellness Retreat in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, and I’d love to extend the invitation to you. We’ll spend five days off the grid, riding horses through wide open landscapes, sharing meals, and creating space to slow down enough to hear ourselves think again. This retreat is about returning to yourself, settling your nervous system, letting go of what you’ve been carrying, and getting clearer about what matters now. The group will be small (no more than 10 women), and we’ll move at a steady, spacious pace, with plenty of room for both conversation and quiet. I hope you’ll consider joining us.
I drafted a Strategic Framework for Congregations as we move into the coming years of increased authoritarianism around the world. If interested, you can download it here.
Fun Things My Friends Are Up To…
I get to work with such amazing, creative people. This section is my way of celebrating them—no paid promotions, just joy in what they’re creating.
The Convergence Music Project has scheduled the fall conference on October 7-10, 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky. We will sing new community songs created specifically for this time in our history and explore together how the songs we sing in worship (and beyond) can empower and encourage us as we live out the biblical call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.” Learn more here.
A group of faith leaders joined MPR News host Angela Davis for a North Star Journey Live event at our studios in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, March 26, to talk about what they experienced on the front lines of the immigration enforcement surge and how their faith both compelled and comforted them. Listen here.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
Lynne was part of this series that I hosted with Matthew Fox: https://convergencecolab.org/p/visions-for-the-common-good
Lynne is the co-founding of the Pachamama Alliance, a global community that offers people the chance to learn, connect, engage, travel and cherish life for the purpose of creating a sustainable future that works for all. Learn more here: https://pachamama.org/
Love this. Carl Jung said, "What you resist persists." Giving energy to what you don't want. Profound. Defining a new model is much harder.
Thank you for your account of Lynne Twist and her commitment to something beyond her own life.
It makes me think of planting trees: the one who plants a tree will never be graced by its shade.
🌱