Twenty-five years ago I was introduced to the writings of Douglas Steere a Quaker whose gentle insight-full and challenging writings continue to influence and impact me. Recently I was revisiting his writings and my notes.
Many years ago he perceptively noted that there is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily gives in to: activism and overwork. Today his perception continues to hold. In our Culture we are addicted to speed, we are suffering from the dis-ease of hurry sickness [my thanks to Milan Kundera for naming this sickness], we are addicted to distraction and we are washed over externally and internally by the tsunami called ‘noise.’
As a consequence we do violence to ourselves and to one another. The violence is a violence of self-depletion. The very dimensions that we must nurture in order to be health-full and not dis-eased we are choosing to deplete. How do we do this?
We choose to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, we surrender to too many demands, we commit to too many projects, we spend discretionary energy – the energy that is not easily replaced – in ways that are not nurturing but are depleting. We cooperate in doing violence to ourselves.
Our frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. Our frenzy destroys the fruitfulness of our efforts. Our frenzy kills the tap roots that feed and sustain our inner wisdom – the wisdom that helps us make our life fruit-full. We might be committed to non-violence, but, it seems, not to ourselves.
Speaking of nonviolence. Nonviolence rooted in love, compassion and empathy seeks to embrace and engage the other. It does not seek to castigate, humiliate or destroy the other. How often do we support, if not engage in, a nonviolence that seeks to defeat and humiliate the other by a spiritual attack rather than a physical attack. ‘True nonviolence’ is, to say the least, deeply challenging.
‘True nonviolence’ strives to operate without hatred, without hostility, without resentment, without dehumanizing the other. ‘True nonviolence’ seeks to identify, call forth and embrace the good that resides in the other. This, as we know only too well, is not easy to do especially when the other has been aroused to a bitter and violent defense of an injustice which the other believes to be just.
We know, again from experience, that it is possible for the most bitter arguments, the most virulent hatreds, to arise among those who are supposed to be working together for noble causes. As Thomas Merton noted: Nothing is better calculated to run and discredit a holy ideal than a fratricidal war among ‘saints’.
A third consideration.
Consider that until ‘WE’ [This ‘WE’ varies] recognize the right of other nations, races, societies to be different from us and to stay different, to have different ideas and to open up new horizons for us our ‘prayers’ that they will be converted will be useless – and meaningless. It will be no better and no worse than ‘their’ idea that we will someday become exactly like them. And, by the by, they are willing to destroy us if we are not willing to become like them AND we are willing to destroy them if they are not willing to become like us [I am thinking of the customer that was physically assaulted by an employee because the customer was speaking a foreign language to her friend].
We both want the other to embrace our attitudes, our prejudices, our values, our language, and our limitations (although we don’t usually identify this last ‘want’ openly).
Being human, compassionate, caring, empathetic, loving, accepting and embracing of the other requires us to feel in our hearts the others’ suffering, the others’ desires for a better life, the others’ dreams for acceptance and the others’ humanity.
Love one another as I have loved you. –God
Searcher-Seeker 