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.