A Stranger to Fear

. . . notes on the nonviolence of Jesus

In my post on itinerancy I wrote that Jesus’s directive was clear: we are to live in such a way that makes clear our unconditional acceptance of our total dependence on God.

He did not limit that directive to the practice of sharing (of not possessing even) material resources! He also extended it nonviolence. Again, I don’t think serious historians and theologians dispute this, though a lot of us do seek legalistic ways to water down its apparent lack of exceptions. The Catholic church’s concept of “just war” is a good example. We can live with “justified violence” but “no violence under any circumstances” is a bridge too far.

The problem is, that’s precisely the bridge Jesus built and asked us to cross. Nonviolence, like love, “is incapable of any exceptions” (T-7.V.5:7).

Still, looking for loopholes is understandable. The teaching is uncompromising which makes it easy to attack. We’re supposed to let the Hitlers and Pol Pots of the world just do their thing? Serial killers and rapists? Come on.

I understand those examples and appreciate the spirit of inquiry behind them. They are based on fear and I am not a stranger to fear.

But the lack of exceptions is what makes the lesson so valuable. The lack of exception is what makes nonviolence meaningful and relevant. If God is not violent, then we cannot be violent and remain one with God. Recognizing and accepting (i.e., living in accordance with) our unconditional dependence on God is the mirror image of God’s unconditional love for us. When we accept those terms, the relationship becomes a source of strength, not weakness, and it reveals our shared innocence which is our strength.

Nonviolence is strength. Innocence is strength. And strength arises from our unity with God and, through God, with each other and all Creation. The truly nonviolent have no enemies. That is because “there is no will except the Will of Love” (W-pII.331.1:6-7).

Recourse to violence as a means of solving problems (and the belief that such recourse is rational) is one of the personal prerogatives that Jesus calls us to let go of. Who lives and dies, who gets to wear the mantle of hero and the mantle of monster, is not up to us. God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust alike. Just as we can’t say when or where it will rain, so we cannot say where death and loss will appear. It’s God’s call because it’s God’s Creation.

But Jesus goes deeper than that. It’s true I can’t say where or when it will rain but also I can’t make it rain. I can’t turn sunshine into water. In other words, Jesus is saying not only that we can’t know if or when violence is justified or appropriate, even if we did know we wouldn’t be able to execute it. We can’t be responsibly or justifiably violent. Ever.

On that view, when we are practicing nonviolence we are simply bringing ourselves into accordance with – we are cohering with – God. We are recognizing – we are realizing, whole-heartedly and open-mindedly – our utter dependence on God.

The Lord will keep you from all harm –
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore (PS 121:7-8).

It’s good to be nonviolent. In our lives there is a lot of conflict and resolving it nonviolently makes us and others happier, in a way that echoes and reechoes across relationships and the world. Nor is it an error to extend our practice of nonviolence to political and economic domains. Systemic violence is not separate from our individual participation in the system. We have differences – serious ones sometimes – and resolving them shy of war and destruction matters.

Therefore, don’t yell at people. Don’t lie. Don’t plot revenge for harm done and don’t harm someone preemptively to avoid greater harm down the road. Don’t break things. Don’t gaslight people. Don’t use your talents (a sharp tongue, a quick wit) or privilege (access to inside information, immunity from certain consequences) to oppress others. Weaponize nothing and partake of no defense. Resist inequality in loving and peace-filled ways.

That is the practice. And – for most of us – it’s a local practice, a close-by practice. We tend to think of nonviolence on global scales – Gandhi’s salt marches, MLK in Birmingham, Dorothy Day on a picket line – but for most of us, a local application of nonviolence is our mission and, for most of us, that’s enough. It’s more than enough.

It’s not a crime against God or nature to make mistakes in this regard. I do, often. But nonviolence remains the practice. When I fall short, the practice calls me to reflect on the error. What confusion does it represent? What pattern or conditioning does it depend upon and extend? Who can help me think it through? Who can help me find a way to live in which those errors occur with less frequency and intensity?

When I screw up, the clear seeing inherent in my commitment to nonviolence allows me to make an authentic apology – one that is sincere and non-dramatic. Understanding makes possible creative amends that are reasonable and mutual. I don’t have to dwell on the error or hold my happiness hostage to perfection. We all screw up. God’s Love is not conditional on our behavior or intention. I’m not forsaken just because I hurt your feelings or worse. I have work to do, yes. But I am not less loved by God.

Nonviolence, like itinerancy, is an understanding and a practice. It’s a way of living in the world with others that is only possible because we are itinerant. The two coalesce in a practice that to outsiders looks like love and to us, on the inside, feels like love, albeit one that is greater than we are, and to which we owe our existence, and on behalf of which we are grateful to labor and love.

Nonviolence, like itinerancy, seems impossible. But that’s fear speaking. The real problem with nonviolence is our desire to hold onto the privileged self – the one that gets to justify this or that act of violence, the one who gets to decide who deserves punishment or invasion or torture. The one whose values and ideals matter just a little more than anyone else’s – the one who’s just a little better than everyone else.

And, in the same way that the practice of itinerancy redresses our fear of itinerancy, nonviolence redresses our resistance to nonviolence.

When we practice nonviolence – and recognize how bad we are it and how much help we need – we fall into step with Jesus. We tend to idolize Jesus, right? He sits at the right hand of God and all that. We’re like the disciples arguing who’s next in the Kingdom (e.g., Luke 22:24-30). But when you’re on the road with Jesus – when you are living with Jesus, falling and being lifted by Jesus, over and over – then you fall into step with him. The way harmonizes. The response to “nonviolence is impossible for me” is a lived response.

You want to get better at nonviolence? Practice nonviolence. There is nothing new under the sun. When you study Walter Wink, march or fast, hold your tongue, bear patiently the arrows of misfortune or whatever, you not only touch the hem of Jesus’s robe, you put it on. And here is the thing – when you put on Jesus’s robe, you realize there is no space between you and Jesus. You learn instantly that the first victim of our proclivity for violence is our own self, and so a practice of nonviolence must begin with mercy, kindness and forbearance towards our own self.

I found this remarkably difficult. When I began to imagine God’s Love for me – to treat myself the way God would, to see myself the way God saw me – I ran headlong into a hatred and destructiveness that both terrified and saddened me. I beheld my willingness to endure self-imposed harm – blackout drinking, homelessness, loneliness and isolation, refusal of helpful medication, turning away from helping hands, et cetera.

I did not feel worthy of God’s Love. I felt like punishing myself was what God wanted. I did not understand – I did not want to understand – that nonviolence begins with self-love, i.e., respecting oneself, caring for oneself, sharing oneself, being oneself. In order to share, we have to have something to give!

This is a hard knot to unravel – nonviolence is inner work that binds itself to changes in the external world, specifically, shifts from fear to love. You can’t have one without the other. The paradox would be insufferable save for the simple truth that the knot unravels – the paradox resolves – itself. Rather than fight self-hatred and despair – rather than try to destroy the one inside who wanted to destroy me – I loved them. I made space for them. I stopped being angry and defensive. I listened.

I became willing to forgive myself and slowly – so slowly! – self-forgiveness began to reach the world around me.

This is still a struggle! But the thing is, when I realized how hard it was to love myself, I also realized the utter injustice of failing to love others, whatever the reason. I began to see others – even those who had hurt me or hurt folks I loved – as collaborators in a vast delusion. The delusion was that we are separate beings fighting for survival in a world of scarce resources.

In fact we are entangled beings whose lives are intrinsically bound to all life. We do not live alone or in separation. I became gentler when I saw this. I could handle abusing myself but I didn’t want to abuse you. Not really. And in that (admittedly dysfunctional) revelation lay true salvation: we are in this together, and what I experience you experience, and what you experience I experience. Walt Whitman was right – “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

Nonviolence is about relationship and, in particular, prioritizing the relationship over the ones who comprise it. Itinerancy undoes our right to possess anything apart from others, and nonviolence undoes our right to act without regard to others. In both instances, God’s Love for us manifests in relationship. God is the energy of unity, of uniting. Division is an illusion and so the conflicts division engenders are also illusory.  

I don’t have to undo violence. I can’t undo it. Rather, I have to practice nonviolence in my life where and as it is – with myself, my family, my neighbors and co-workers. Doing so creates pockets of grace in which it is easier to recognize the harmful systems and systematizing – truly, power and principalities – and then not buy into it. We don’t have to work on relationships so much as see the way in which there is only one relationship and we are it.

Nonviolence begins with an understanding that this is not my world but God’s, and God has shared it with me, and that means that I have a responsibility to share as God shares it and, to the extent I cannot share in that way, work at learning how to.

For me, a practice of nonviolence – which is a practice of understanding, mercy and forgiveness offered to myself and everyone else – must be grounded in awareness of our shared innocence and its potential. Shared innocence is creative and alive, in the same way that jazz and knitting are creative and alive. It’s out there, you can encounter and participate in it, and doing so can be immensely rewarding and enriching.