I shared early on that my preoccupation with nonviolence began when I discovered the idea that love is not only more powerful than violence but also the only force in the universe strong enough to overcome it.
At first my interest was purely fueled by curiosity.
Was this really true?
How come?
Prove it.
But then, as I studied an increasing number of social concerns through this lens of love, I became enamored by that central undercurrent:
LOVE.
How does it grow?
What is its source?
How do we increase our own capacity to carry it deep in our hearts?
.
I walked through the pages of Gandhi’s life and watched him live with circumspect dignity and care for all he met. How did he develop the strength to live that way?
I read about the bombings on Martin Luther King’s home and his unwillingness to fight back or even demonize those who did it. How did he find the inner reserve of strength to respond that way?
I read dozens of Thomas Merton’s private letters, so many littered with the conviction that wars and bombs are merely outcomes of our fears. How did he develop that conviction?
I went back to the teachings of Jesus again and again. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hurt you. Turn the other cheek. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the peacemakers. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. How do we become people who willingly love this way?
.
Something else happened along the way.
My heart became tattered and torn into tiny pieces, over and over and over.
Violence in the Congo.
Violence in Iran.
Torture in Guantanamo Bay.
The true tale of Dead Man Walking.
Child soldiers in Uganda, felled deftly by the sound of falling whistles.
And while many, many tears fell for the victims inside these stories, something altogether foreign began happening in me.
I became increasingly wrecked for their enemies.
With every news report I read of the green revolution happening in Iran, I could see the eyes of the Supreme Ayatollah and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad staring at me.
When the torture memos were released from Guantanamo Bay, I couldn’t stop seeing the eyes of those applying the torture.
When I watched Dead Man Walking, I cried and cried and cried as Sean Penn’s eyes stared back at me from the screen, his arms stretched outward in the shape of a cross as he received that deathly dosage in his very last scene.
Their eyes haunted me.
Everywhere I went, I could see them.
I balled up in bed many times, and I wept.
For them.
These enemies.
What was happening to me?
How in the world did I end up here?
How did I come to care for those it is so easy for us to despise?
.
I don’t fully know the answers to these questions, though I’ve been developing some ideas. But one thing I’ve determined is certainly true: the road to nonviolence is about the journey toward increasing and overwhelming love.
That is the work we will be about here. We will explore and walk together the road toward increasing love.
I had the privilege of hearing Sr. Helen PreJean, speak at a Council of Catholic Women Diocesan Convention (2002). Her story of her work in the prisons especially on death row is truly a testiment of divine love. She attributed it to the love of God. Who was she to judge them? How could she not see Jesus within these men? How could she not extend her hand in love and be grateful for the mercy that God extends to us? PreJean has lived the life with these men as their spiritual director/advisor and because of this experience she has become an advocate speaking against capital punishment. She said it begins with one person that she journeyed with. That one person helped her to find God’s wellspring of love within her. Truly, she is a testiment of His Will for us to see love is possible, we just have to look beyond what’s in front of us and search for the more to each person we encounter.
Gigi, how amazing that you had a chance to hear Sister Prejean speak! That must have been truly incredible.
I’ve been making my way toward similar work in my own life. A couple scenarios in quick succession last fall led me to start moving toward prison ministry, and I feel particularly drawn toward working with the chaplain requests from people who don’t know God. It seems like the specific way God can begin showing me what it is really like for light to come into dark places, for love to transform violence.
I have so much to learn, and I feel like such a meagre offering of his love … and yet I also feel incredibly drawn forward toward this and like I cannot turn back even if I tried.
Yes, yes, and yes. Questions I’ve been starting to ask myself too, especially in the course of Good Friday.
When Isaiah 53 was read aloud in church, I wondered how it was that a sinless man, a man who had committed no injustice, could be silent while he was accused of awful and vile things. I wondered how his replies could be calm when he had all the power available to him to defend himself and shame His enemies.
How could he love us that much, even in spite of how we hated Him?
I think it has to come from the heart of God — I think it has to be a real conversion of the heart. We can ask for it, and we need definitely to be open to it, but I’m not sure it’s a state of heart we can create within ourselves. I don’t know how else it would be possible.
Kirsten, it sounds like Good Friday met you in a similar way to how it met me! I have been trying to put into words for the last handful of days what went through my heart and mind as I sat in our dark sanctuary and had the realization hit me: he suffered violence … for us. This truly is the testament of love all of this that we talk about here is about.
I’m hoping to share some of those thoughts in an upcoming post. But I’m glad to know that you, too, are so moved by this love of our Savior and his silent endurance of those events.
I like what you’re sharing about it coming from the heart of God and being a conversion beyond our ability. That resonates with me. I do feel like what’s been happening in me is not something I could control at all. I didn’t ask for it, didn’t seek it. It’s almost like it found me. Or rather, that God looked upon me, smiled, and said, “Now it’s time for this to begin.”
Great food for thought. Something to definitely keep ruminating upon in these pages. Thanks, friend!
Love, all love, starts with humility. When you first said you love Kirk you humbled yourself. Humility is putting all of your wisdom, knowledge, stature, presence, into the advancing of another person.
When we humble ourselves again, and again, and again, we begin to see the divine thread that ties everything together. That thread is love. Specifically the love of Christ working in and through us, which in turn teaches us to love to a greater degree. No longer can we in ignorance sit in judgment of the other. We can only sit in love.
Our tribal minds, by nature, group together with like minded people who look, talk, love like us. We develop and us vs. them in order to survive. But that is just to survive. To thrive we must love, and love abundantly, love with all we have.
Love motivates the soldier on the other side of the gun as well. Love of family, his life, his god, his country. When we realize that we can do no better then to weep in each others arms and embrace that truth.
Love these thoughts on humility, Carl!
And of course my very next question to ponder becomes: How does one grow in humility? :-)
I’m specifically interested in discussing through this journey the process, the how, the taking root, the deep-down-realness of our growth points. I’ve been reflecting on the process in my own story … how God helped me slowly move along … and I think it’s such a marvelous, fascinating subject to explore with others and their stories. I’m looking forward to it!
“Humility is putting all of your wisdom, knowledge, stature, presence, into the advancing of another person.” (or cause)
Biblical humility is always based on the other, never you. Humility is the consistent practice of giving wings to others and watching them spread them out and fly.
Humility towards God means listening a lot more then talking. Humility means “here am I lord, do your best” really means it. It means willful abandonment unto what God teaches you. He will always teach you to love, because love is the fabric of the cosmos. Hatred is no where in his vocabulary.
Maybe I am being a little overly philosophical in my response, but I think it is a starting point that will forever take you deeper.
The interesting thing to me about this, Carl, is how something moves from something we do (specific acts of choosing to put another person before ourselves) to something we are.
As you said, we can say “Here I am, Lord, do your best” without meaning it. Humility is really meaning it. But how does one come to really mean it in the depth of their soul?
I took a class on the spiritual disciplines for my graduate program last year. We learned about the principle of indirection. This is a principle that basically says, “We do small acts that are within our power so that, through the continual doing of them, God forms in us a character that is not within our power to produce ourselves.”
In other words, we cannot become humble … or loving … or virtuous … or any good thing simply by willing ourselves to become those things. We can, however, choose to do little acts of love of humility or kindness or virtue over and over and over again, trusting that through the doing of them, God will also be working in the unseen, interior places of our souls to create in us the real character of love and humility and kindness and virtue.
Does that make sense? It’s pretty marvelous, I think, how we are participants in our growth process but not the ultimate actualizers of it!
Hipp, hipp hurray for you Chrisianne and what you write!
Oh, Olga, you are so sweet! So glad you’ve landed here and are joining in. Welcome! xoxo
Christianne, this is intense. It amazing to me to hear any person tapping into that level of mercy and grace. My first reaction to a victim of crime is empathy and compassion. However, that is not my first reaction to perpetrators. It never has been. My first reaction has been “crucify them.”
The person you are and the blogs you write have changed me in so many ways. It has given me a much broader picture of the whole person not just the narrow moment to moment glimpse I see of them.
Thanks for the posts.
Thanks for your loving kindness.
T
You’re welcome, Tammy. And you have changed me in many ways, too. The way you think about things and describe the truth of something blows my mind.
Love you.
We need to love the world and every one in it. The more we have the power to love, the more it will be spread, and the world will be love. But it takes 1 person to pass love around to each person.
So true, Kalem! Each of us has the power to love each person we meet. Good thoughts. Thank you for joining the conversation here! Welcome.