Oboedire "Nonviolence: A Way of Endurance" by J. Steven Harper for Wednesday, 21 December 2016

Oboedire   "Nonviolence: A Way of Endurance" by J. Steven Harper for Wednesday, 21 December 2016
To read of the various expressions of nonviolent resistance inevitably raises the questions, "How were they able to keep going despite wave after wave of opposition, which sometimes included murder, and always included degradation? How did they maintain such poise in the face of such poison?"
There are two responses which emerge from the nonviolent movements themselves. The first is that sometimes they broke under the pressure. Every nonviolent leader I have read acknowledges this. Sometimes the suffering was so severe that even those committed to nonviolence caved in to depression and/or to retaliatory actions. This is not to denigrate the validity of nonviolence, but rather to point to the immensity of the opposition. The sad reality is that sometimes the abuse was more than some could bear.
But there was a second response to the questions--the response which characterized nonviolent movements as-a-whole. The adherents believed they were moving with the flow of the Universe. A Hindu looked at Gandhi and said, "He has accepted the law of nonviolence as certain as the law that governs the fall of Newton's apple."
Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. believed that the practice of nonviolence in the civil rights movement had "cosmic backing" (agapé), which created the vision of a world "where all men live together...and respect the dignity and worth of all human personality."
E. Stanley Jones stepped back from particular nonviolent movements and summarized the endurance of those involved, "Inward poise can only come when we are sure that the sum total of reality is backing our way of living. Inner poise is an outgrowth of an assurance that Reality approves of us, sustains us, and guarantees our future."
Jones used the image of fire to describe it and wrote, "The fire must be the fire of the Spirit." He wrote an entire book about it, 'The Way to Power and Poise" (1949)--the same two words he used to describe Gandhi in his book, 'Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend' written just one year earlier (1948).
Nonviolence endures suffering because those who practice it believe from the core of their being that by manifesting the fruit of the Spirit against opposition, that they are instruments of God's peace.
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J. Steven Harper
Monday, December 19, 2016
Categories: Nonviolence
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1GM
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Oboedire   "Advent #4: No More Abandonment" by J. Steven Harper for Wednesday, 14 December 2016
The reading for the final Sunday in Advent is Isaiah 7:10-16, foreseeing a time when there will be no more abandonment.
Ask any counselor or health-care provider, and they will confirm the "hole in the soul" which forms in individuals or groups who experience abandonment. Exile was the experience of it in Isaiah's day. The refugee crisis is a sign of it in our day. But beneath the macro manifestations, there are innumerable people walking around feeling left alone, left behind, and left to fend for themselves. This kind of abject loneliness ("aloneness") drains our souls of strength and hope, creating the "desert" which Isaiah mentions periodically in his book--a "wilderness state" to use John Wesley's phrase.
Into this sense of abandonment, God speaks one word: "Immanuel"--the word of assurance that we are never alone. God is with us! Isaiah saw a day darker than had been since the day Ephraim departed from Judah (7:17), but (to borrow the words of St. John) the darkness could not defeat the light.
This is the pinnacle of our faith, and the central message of Advent. You are never alone! But before people can hear that message and allow it to fill their emptiness, they must be shown it through acts of kindness offered by others.
That is one reason why I have chosen to spend 2016 on my Oboedire blog writing about "Mercy" and "Nonviolence." These are the means of grace that bring relief from the ravages of war, injustice, fear, and abandonment which Isaiah has described in our Advent readings.
Immanuel!! Love with skin on--love incarnate in Jesus and manifested by those of us who follow him. Advent--"something coming"--"something here." Do we see it? Will we live it?
[I am not writing Christmastide meditations, but the readings continue in Isaiah--in the second section of the book, where the themes of promise and hope are intensified: December 25--Isaiah 52:7-10, and January 1--Isaiah 60:1-6]
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J. Steven Harper
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Categories: Uncategorized
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1H7
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Oboedire   "Nonviolence: Process" by J. Steven Harper
Principles must be enacted. Martin Luther King Jr. proposed the following six steps to express the principles of non violence in specific situations. These steps are still taught at the King Center in Atlanta.
INFORMATION GATHERING: To understand and articulate an issue, problem or injustice facing a person, community, or institution you must do research. You must investigate and gather all vital information from all sides of the argument or issue so as to increase your understanding of the problem. You must become an expert on your opponent's position.
EDUCATION: It is essential to inform others, including your opposition, about your issue. This minimizes misunderstandings and gains you support and sympathy.
PERSONAL COMMITMENT: Daily check and affirm your faith in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence. Eliminate hidden motives and prepare yourself to accept suffering, if necessary, in your work for justice.
DISCUSSION/NEGOTIATION: Using grace, humor and intelligence, confront the other party with a list of injustices and a plan for addressing and resolving these injustices. Look for what is positive in every action and statement the opposition makes. Do not seek to humiliate the opponent but to call forth the good in the opponent.
RECONCILIATION: Nonviolence seeks friendship and understanding with the opponent. Nonviolence does not seek to defeat the opponent. Nonviolence is directed against evil systems, forces, oppressive policies, unjust acts, but not against persons. Through reasoned compromise, both sides resolve the injustice with a plan of action. Each act of reconciliation is one step closer to the 'Beloved Community.'
These practices should be seen as phases or cycles of a campaign rather than successive steps because each of them embodies a cluster or series of activities related to each of the other five elements.
DIRECT ACTION: These are actions taken when the opponent is unwilling to enter into, or remain in, discussion/negotiation. These actions impose a "creative tension" into the conflict, supplying moral pressure on your opponent to work with you in resolving the injustice.
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J. Steven Harper
Monday, December 12, 2016
Categories: Nonviolence
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1GK
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Oboedire   "Advent #3: No More Fear" by J. Steven Harper
The reading for the third Sunday in Advent is Isaiah 35:1-10, looking toward a time when there is no more fear.
When a people are enveloped over an extended period of time in an atmosphere of arrogance and are the victims of its injustice, they easily succumb to fear. Such was the case in Isaiah's day. And all these years later a shroud of fear overlays many of our attitudes and actions today. We know what it feels like to have "feeble knees" and "fearful hearts" (35:3-4).
This is why the Advent message through the writing of Isaiah is so powerful this year. We continue to get daily doses of unfolding history which are clearly foreboding. "Fear not!" is a two-word exhortation to live another way--not only one that Isaiah uttered, but also the message Gabriel gave to Mary, and words Jesus and Paul spoke to anxious people.
This is more than telling someone to "Buck up!" although we can engage in practices that decrease our fears. Rather, the call to abandon fear is the deeper invitation to shift the basis of our trust from the things we see to the One Who is unseen.
This is not easy, and I admit that history shows there are often long stretches when Light and Life are eclipsed by darkness and death. Isaiah's time included a 200-year period of division and exile. I have known people who suffered, without relief, until the day they died--despite being prayed for, anointed with oil, etc.
Isaiah's vision did not begin in history, it began in the heart's of those who believed that sin, suffering, and struggle do not have the last word, and by faith they began to live in relation to that larger reality. Not one person lived to see the return and restoration of the exiled nation, but today's reading shows that they saw it from afar, and their anticipation kept hope alive.
The writer of Hebrews said the same was true for the cavalcade of saints who likewise saw their redemption via anticipation (Hebrews 11:39-40). We continue to sing the fear-not message, "Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet." We enter Advent with the promise that there will indeed be a time when there is no more fear, and with the power of faith to deliver us from it in the meantime.
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J. Steven Harper
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Categories: Advent 2016
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1H5
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Oboedire   "Nonviolence: Principles" by J. Steven Harper
Martin Luther King Jr. condensed the essence of nonviolence into the following six principles--principles which are still taught at the King Center in Atlanta.
PRINCIPLE ONE: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil. It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
PRINCIPLE TWO: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. The end result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation. The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
PRINCIPLE THREE: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people. Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people. The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil not people.
PRINCIPLE FOUR: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform. Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation. Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
PRINCIPLE FIVE: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body. Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish and creative.
PRINCIPLE SIX: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win. Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.
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J. Steven Harper
Monday, December 5, 2016
Categories: Editorials
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1GI
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Oboedire   "Advent#2: No More Injustice" by J. Steven Harper
The reading for the second Sunday in Advent is Isaiah 11:1-10, as the prophet envisions a time when injustice is no more.
The hallmark of arrogance is injustice--the spirit of partisanship that creates a vested in-group which speaks and acts to the exclusion of others. Such injustice grants an artificial permission for the "empowered" to legitimize their prejudicial behavior.
To use Isaiah's imagery, in the fallen world wolves devour lambs, leopards kill young goats, and lions eat calves. But in God's world "the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion will feed together" (7:6).
This is today referred to as "the peaceable kingdom." It is where hesed and agapé prevail--where discrimination, prejudice, and hatred are eliminated so that Shalom can prevail. The vision is pervasive, "They won't harm or destroy anywhere" (7:9).
Advent overcomes injustice. Those who create and thrive on hierarchical, in/out thinking and acting will be displaced by the "little child who leads them" (7:6) and everyone to the place of liberty and justice for all (cf. Luke 4:18-19).
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J. Steven Harper
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Categories: Advent 2016
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1H3
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