Man of Peace

Sometimes things get away from us before we notice them.  I'm convinced most bad things start as good ideas that get perverted in the application...probably by small unnoticeable steps.  I recently found myself being quite tense and angry.  Every little thing began to bother me.

Fortunately, I rather quickly realized that it wasn't a problem with the entire world, but with me.  Among the quite probable multiple errors I made in this, one I noticed was that I felt as if I was resisting a constant tide.  It was me standing strong, fighting forward, alone against the fray...metaphorically, in my mind.

Like I said, I don't think this is wrong in itself.  I think we need more people who stand up for what is right, demand that as far as their influence reaches, things are done well and honestly.  The probelm is this is very tiring, alienating, stressful.

The truth is, I don't have to fix everything, including myself.  In fact, I have to fix nothing.  The yoke should be easy, and the burden light, not the opposite.  Funny how fighting to take off burdens becomes a burden in itself.

But I don't want to dwell on the principles, I want to talk about the specifics in this case.  I am laying down my arms.  I have misunderstood the militaristic imagery of the Bible in my own way.  I have realized that I can't be any kind of hard-minded.  This includes how I think of myself.  I am shedding the Holy Knight's armor for the friar's habit.  I no longer want to be the warrior monk, not even the standoffish Ranger exuding a watchful quiet that whispers of latent danger.  I want to be Brother Elias and Lawrence.  Bombadil.  Unaffected by the churning of the world. 

I don't mean to close myself off to the world, but to approach it differently.  I had become so focused on defending my flock that I lost sight of the fact that the flock isn't in any real danger.  Not circumstantially, but existentially, catagorically.  They are safe because they have been removed from the possibility of harm.

I love the epic story so much, it's easy to cast myself in that light.  But the truth is, the danger has been eliminated.  Truthfully, there never was any real danger.  God has always been in control, nothing occurs outside his will, and even the most dastardly schemes to do harm are woven back beyond impotence to actually work good and the will of the Father.  This is the Gospel.  The world is restored.

The people I most admire overcame terrible circumstances and even walked into horrific death, not as steely gladiators, afraid of nothing, but as simple people so convinced that the world had been set right that even their present suffering was not a blip on their radar.

This is who I want to be.  And I can't do that with my fist clenched and my fangs bared.  So I'm laying down my guard, laying down my weapons.  I'm sure there is a place for those feelings, but I can't use them right now.  They are too tainted, carry too much possibility of consuming me.  So while I may still feel those urges, I am offering myself up to a new perspective and can only pray that I do not go the way of Mendoza in the Mission.  I want to be a man of peace.

What this means for me is that I will not associate myself with or flood myself with images of fighting.  I will not style myself that way any more.  My physical training will shift: rather than preparing to face the foe, to be ready to snatch the helpless from the jaws of the beast, I will move out of joy and celebration.  I will look for and acknowledge the good.  I am choosing a path of peace...not pacifism, but understanding conflict, it's roots, and moving beyond it.  I have to learn to let God fight for me and not the other way around.  I think I'll find that there will be no fight to have because all the variables are in God's control.

I'm sure this makes little sense and is far too internal to be of much use to anyone else.  But this is the key to my cage.  I'm opening the door and walking out to find it was never locked.

Cages

A couple of things are rolling around in my head.  One has to do with joy.  What is it?  I've read the definition, but it seems inadequate.  Maybe I've just not experienced it.  I know peace (which is an inner quiet).  I know happiness (which is dependent on circumstances).  But I can't say I've ever known an abiding gladness...Perhaps I have, there was a time I think I had it.  Things weren't perfect, but I just seemed to be glad, positive, most of the time.

Though, it seems this had much to do with the circumstances, which would pull it into the realm of happiness, right?  I distinctly remember frustrations and difficulties then, so I know this isn't a rosy memory (though I don't have those anyway).  Truly, I tend to see always the bad, so to remember a time of happiness that was longer than fleeting is something.

Just recently, I have felt a deep need for joy.  I even almost felt it yesterday, but it escaped me before I could fully feel it.  It was like a shadow of it, or a snatch of music heard indistinctly.  And then it was gone.

This transitions nicely into the other thing in my head...I'd wondered how they would relate.  I have blogged previously about my naturally darker nature.  I have to accept it.  I have tried to change it, ignore it, etc.  But it is part of me, and this is not necessarily a defect.

So what stands in my way?  I think it has to do with cages, fetters.  I despise them.  I hate being tied down or restricted.  Not all restrictions; some are necessary, I know that.  But the unnecessary tangles of life, those I hate.  Mortgages, bills, tenuous family obligations.  These are drudgery and torture.  Give me one day when I am stuck at home with nothing to do and unable to leave because of something like, my son is out playing and too young to leave alone...and I'm prowling the floors like a tiger, looking for anything to occupy the restlessness.  Read, watch pointless TV; this only goes so far.  Sleep; that too only covers so much.  This is why I make so many things with my hands...anything to occupy my mind when I can't go and do. 

My wife seems to like those times.  Relaxing, she calls it.  It's torture.  I want to rip the walls down.  Sometimes I'll go outside, but I'm surrounded by acres and acres of more little cages with small caged streets and bigger caged streets and fences, all hemming me into this world of cushy padded nothing.

Granted, it is good to be safe and secure.  This is a blessing I would not withhold from anyone.  I think what is missing in it is meaning.  Real depth.  Challenge.  I am so in love with adventure stories, books, movies.  I want to be swept away on some quest or mission.  I want every moment to feel vibrant and real.  Then when I return home, I'll want to be here.  To rest and enjoy the peace.  But eventually to go back out into the world again.

I do not pretend to have missed my calling.  I am what I should be, or on the journey toward it.  But at times like these, especially around holidays when I am sitting around endlessly, it gets to me.  I want my family to join me.  But they are not that type.  I can't make my wife into what she is not.  My son will join some, but is also content to sit and putter.

I work my life to be as free as possible, but everywhere, people throw fetters on.  We're not good citizens if we aren't chained down a hundred ways.  And so I sit, and prowl, and make something, and prowl.  I may even get fed up and disappear for a short time, but the chains of responsibility will pull me back again.

I will step out on the road and wish for something to happen that breaks the chains.

Actually...I think I've just hit something else.  My anxiety from being around other people comes precisely because I am so looking for this kind of life.  I feel like the Ranger sitting cloaked in the corner, ever watchful, ever ready to strike, to move, to go.  But outside is nothing but padded walls and fat docile pets.  With expectation of something more and no where to direct it, everywhere becomes a source of irritation, anxiety.  It's like the tiger who attacks the one who feeds it, or an innocent bystander.  I just want out of the cage.

Power

Power can never be taken.  It can only be given.  This is absolutely true.  To understand it, though, we have to understand power.

Merriam-Webster defines it as 1. ability to act or produce an effect. 2. possession of control, influence, or authority over others. 3. physical might.

I'm obviously talking about definition 2, but in a less direct way, my statement also applies to 1 and 3.

So regarding power over others, this power can only be given with the consent of those over whom it is exercised.  We don't like to think of it that way because too many of us lay down and roll over to let people have power over us.  We want to feel excused, that there was nothing we could do.  But this is false because no one can physically make you do anything you do not choose to do.

Actually, there's two exceptions.  They can make you hurt and they can make you die.  But they still can't make you do anything they want you to do.  What we call oppression is really just strong coercion.  An oppressor finds something we want and attempts to control our receipt of it contingent upon us doing what they want.  This doesn't always have to be negative.  Many rulers know that positive reinforcement is better than negative in many cases.  In this case we don't tend to call it oppression, but the principle is the same.  We want the reward, so we comply.  Parents use this all the time.

Another side of this coercion complex involves vilifying those who don't comply and making negative examples of them.  This plays on the human tendency to conform and really just greases the wheels of the coercive process.

But it doesn't always work.  If a person or people lose the fear of the consequences, the power is gone.  Unfortunately in our society, one of the largest coercive factors is the idea that death is the ultimate evil.  If life is to be preserved at all costs, the power is handed over.  It simply becomes a matter of the degree to which it is exercised.  But if death is not feared, the ruler is grasping at straws because even pain is not so effective a coercion simply because no ruler can hurt enough people.  sure it may work one on one, but usually this occurs only after someone has already given over too much power in the first place.

Here's some examples.  Ever wonder why Native Americans were not enslaved by the Europeans?  Why would they go to the trouble and expense to catch and ship over Africans when there was an ample supply of primitive people right in their own backyard?  The answer is that they tried.  The problem was that Native Americans were (and still are) an independent and defiant people who do not hand over their power.  Even if one could be taken alive, he or she would not work.  Give them a tool and they'd put it through your head.  Slack the chain and they'd wrap it around your neck.  Pen them up and try to break them, and they'd simply starve to death or take their own life before giving in.  Where do you think that fierce independent streak of American culture came from?  Indians weren't destroyed.  They were absorbed.  The distinct cultures were largely lost, but I am a living example of the assimilated, but not conquered people who have left an indelible mark on American culture.  Truly, modern American culture IS a hybrid of Native and European and African influences.  But I digress.

Secondly, the Christian martyrs, both ancient and modern.  They came from the dominant cultures in which they were found, but lost their fear of death and even pain because of their faith.  While they didn't often resort to violent resistance, they were never conquered and thousands have refused to submit to countless regimes that violated their beliefs.

Third, Muslim martyrs.  The reason Islamic terrorism is so scary is that it can occur anywhere and from anyone.  A people who are not afraid to die do not need to submit.

But I also mentioned torture as often the result of having given up power and attempting to take it back too late.  The best example I know are the Nazi concentration camp victims.  Countless people sat by and watched as they gave up more and more power to the Nazi regime.  Then even when they were being hauled away, few resisted.  Some did.  But not most.

The Christian martyrs are not exactly in this state because they willingly submitted to the torture because of their beliefs in nonviolence.  Since it was willing, they weren't technically abdicating their power, but choosing not to exercise their power out of deference to God, whom they believed to be in control even in that time.  Some were miraculously rescued, others weren't.  But before you go trying to say this proves God doesn't exist or didn't favor them, remember what I said about death not being the ultimate evil.

I want to be clear, that I'm not downplaying the strength of the coercion.  I'm not judging anyone for acting or not acting in any way.  Until we're there, we can't say how we'd react either.  I'm simply pointing out that these were indeed cases where power was given and not taken.

I'm not even saying it is wrong to always allow someone power over you.  Certainly there are cases where it is wise, prudent, beneficial, and even good to submit.  The difference is the understanding of what we're doing.  It is voluntary submission.  No human has power over another by innate right.  It is ALWAYS by the consent of the governed.

This understanding should color our views of those over us.  It should also color our views of those under us.  Doubtless someone will quote the Bible passage about submitting to those in authority because God placed them there.  Yes.  I agree.  What does this have to do with my point?  I still have the choice to submit or not, for good or ill.  I still can't be compelled to do what a ruler says.  And if you are citing this passage, I'd like to also point out the many others about leaders whom God also took down...many through the violent and bloody hands of His people.  So it cuts both ways, pastor.  Are you so certain of which type of leader you are?

So where does this leave us?  Is there a way to act in society?  Yes, I think a mutual respect among all people, a servant leadership that understands it is just that, paired with a diverse and necessary body of others who are no less necessary and no less favored.  While this is an ideal that may be hard to reach (at least in the US), I suggest we at least reclaim the mannered equipoise of many cultures past and present:  Know you have less power than you think you do, and there's always a chance I could be more coercive than you, or at least willing to put you to the ultimate test of defending your power (i.e. I might kill you.)  So let's just be polite and we'll get along fine.

As for a better way, I think we have that as well.  God, being the prime source and beyond our influence altogether, has established that goodness and love flow from Him to us.  Goodness and love draw the recipient toward the giver.  Thus we comply not from coercion, but as a gift back.  It works in the human realm, we've all seen it.  Betrayal is universally denounced.  Good deserves good.  Love deserves love.  It sidesteps the whole power dynamic altogether.  This is how Jesus operated.  This is how many Christians operate.  It just had to start somewhere, and God took care of that for us.  Or rather, He established the universe that way, so we really have no other choice.  To defy it simply negates our own being.  A self-perpetuating system, no punishment necessary.

So I'll leave you with this.  If you are having to manipulate and strive to get people to do what you think they should, you're doing something wrong.  If you have to beg for money or tell people God won't bless them.  If you have to make lighthearted threats to get them to sign up for your program.  You are slipping into the power dynamic, which means you don't have the power in the first place.  Forcing that will be your undoing.

The only winning move is not to play.