(We’re about to embark on a series of posts that explores the individual points of the JTN manifesto. As each post gets written, I’ll update the original post with links to each of these descriptive posts so that we’ll always have an easy way to access the conversations that describe all that we say we believe and why. That original post will then be permanently added to the sidebar for our future reference. The links will also be nested on the About JTN page, where the manifesto also exists.)
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When I sat on the plane that day and began to think about what a tribe committed to the journey of nonviolence would be about, I knew the first thing on the list would be:
The precious dignity of every human person.
I’ll admit, I kept coming back to the wording of this statement. Was the word “precious” too frou-frou? Too feminine? But I couldn’t allow myself to cross out that word.
Precious.
That’s really what it all comes down to. We believe in the inviolable nobility of every human soul.
Every.
Human.
Soul.
Even if they’ve committed great crimes?
Yes.
Even if they’ve enacted great atrocities?
Yes.
Even if we see no hope of life in them at all, given all that they have done?
Yes, even then.
Because what it comes down to is this.
Someone who has committed a great crime, or enacted a great atrocity, or seems to have no hope of life within them … has ultimately began where we stand now: in a place of judgment.
At some point, they came to believe that an individual standing before them was unworthy of life or freedom. They lost the belief that other people carried their own innate sense of dignity. They chose to look upon others as objects to be manipulated or destroyed at their own whim.
If we stand before them in that same judgment seat, how are we any different?
The judgment is the same. And it is a murderous judgment.
A person walking the nonviolent path believes life — all of life — holds innate within it something precious, something mysterious that we cannot bestow and do not possess the authority to snuff out.
(And it should be noted that the broadest views of nonviolence would extend this to life of every kind — creation and animals included — so that it affects the way we care for and inhabit the earth, the way we eat, and even how we treat pesky bugs and spiders crawling along the living room wall!)
Ultimately, this aspect of nonviolence presents questions to us about the value of life, its origin, and its end.
It also asks of us questions of hope:
- Do we believe human beings can change?
- Do we believe we are meant to, through the intention of God?
- If so, how do we believe change in a human soul truly comes about?
These thoughts have only scratched the surface of this subject, and I’m sure you have more to add. So let’s hear your thoughts:
What do you believe — or perhaps struggle to believe — about the precious dignity of every human life?
I am reminded of the couple a few years ago who had a son murdered. They sat in the trial quiet until it was time for sentencing. The family issued a plea for him to not be put in jail, but allowed to live with them so he could learn to be loved. That was powerful to me.
As far as non violence to bugs I am sorry. I use bug spray, don’t care for the ants much in my pantry and have a hard time understanding that one, but I will try.
I believe that when it comes to animals we should be careful of how the meat was treated, how the animal died and that being unethical was not part of the process. But how do you fight against the meat that is being “humanely treated” being two and three times as much as the other meat?
I REALLY believe in care and creation for the earth. I love it, to think about my place in this world for any amount of time just blows my mind. I try and “first do no harm” but how do you buck the whole darn economic system that believes “fill and subdue the earth” means rape pillage and plunder every resource and use every animal for your own pleasure?
That is a powerful story, Carl! Thanks for sharing it. I would love to hear what happened after he came to live with them (if that, in fact, ended up being the “sentencing”).
I’m with you on the bugs! My heart hasn’t been fully converted to this part of the nonviolent path, but I can see progress. My first instinct when I see ants on my counter or small bugs on the wall is to squish them with my finger. But more and more, I’m aware that this is me at my most powerful and violent. Kind of a strange revelation to be having when knocking out the ants cruising around my kitchen counter, but there you go.
I believe change is possible in the human soul at the deepest levels. I believe that even a hardened, murderous, manipulative, hardened criminal can experiencing a true conversion of heart.
That being said, I don’t think this is by any means easy.
I think of the apostle Paul. We know him as a pillar amongst the early church fathers and a prolific author of Scripture. But when I think of what the response of the early Christian church must have been — probably fear, confusion, disgust, suspicion — it reminds me of the feelings I have when I watch the perpetrators of violence films like “Blood Diamond”, “Hotel Rwanda”, or “Taken”. I bet those early Christians felt the same, only to a greater degree, because for them, it was deeply and profoundly personal. Saul persecuted and murdered Christians and saw it as a holy cause. Perhaps he even enjoyed it.
While Paul’s case is unique in history (not all of us experience conversion with a literal blinding light), he did experience a profound conversion. Even in more recent times, we see the rich forfeiting their wealth, we see the powerful risking their status for others.
I don’t know what this conversion looks like at its root, though — I imagine the impetus for every person is going to vary in appearance. Something is going to shock their realities, something is going to cause the scales to fall off their eyes.
I believe love is at the root of this, but I find myself asking again: how does someone so hardened receive it? what is the in road to that place in their soul in which sparks of the human are still alive?
Truth is, I’m not sure that it’s anything that we do. I think it’s who we are — mirroring Christ, not responding in kind when we witness or experience violence, asking the “why” questions instead of responding with judgment.
I’m sorry, I guess this wasn’t terribly helpful. Conversion of heart is possible, I believe this — but the “how” of it remains a mystery to me.
Kirsten, I hear you. And you are asking the root question that has been plaguing me without placation for this last year.
HOW IS THE HEART CHANGED?
I can’t tell you how many times these large letters have been scrawled inside the pages of my journal, nor how many different journals in which this question appears over and over again.
Really, you are getting at the root of what this blog is about. The tagline at the top of the page says, ” … in the end, it is about increasing our capacity to love … ” And really, that’s at the heart of all of it: increasing our own capacity to love those we aren’t naturally disposed to love as we become nonviolent, but also exploring how love takes root in the human heart in the first place.
This is the biggest question I ask myself, and it’s what I care most about exploring here in the end: how is the heart changed? how do we grow in love? how, how, how, how, how???
I can’t wait to explore out loud the thoughts questing around in my brain about this subject, and to hear everyone else’s thoughts as we explore it, too!
I definitely believe that every human life is precious. I struggle with what to do when one person uses their precious human life to harm or take another’s. What then? I end up wondering if violence, as distateful and deeply wrong as it is to me, is sometimes the best thing that we’re left with in this bent and broken world. But does our violence bend and break it more? It seems like a never ending cycle . . . or at least, one that I haven’t found answers to yet.
You’re asking a key question, Sarah, and a good one.
I’m coming to believe that our violent response only bends and breaks it even more. Who do we become when we enact violence against another, no matter how just the cause seems to us? What happens in our own soul when we do that? And what, really, can be accomplished in the soul of another if we bring violence against them, too, in some kind of recompense? I can’t imagine conversion will ever be the result … only more anger.
This gets tough when we think about questions of war.
Hey Christianne
I see you have put up a new blog and will come back when I can give this my full attention. I am working really hard trying to test out of my statistics class and it is consuming A LOT of my time. Be back soon. Love ya.
No worries, Tammy! Study well, and I hope the testing process is fruitful for you! Statistics … blech. :)
“Someone who has committed a great crime, or enacted a great atrocity, or seems to have no hope of life within them … has ultimately began where we stand now: in a place of judgment.”
THAT is a powerful statement. I like Terri’s pastor (Greg Boyd’s) view on this subject. He calls the love of Jesus scandalous. I like that wording.
I love you Christianne, but I draw the line on the bug thing…….Nope, ain’t doin it. Love you though, zen master.
I like that idea of scandalous love, too, Tammy. I also like the idea of radical grace. Radical and scandalous … sounds like my kind of party! :)