Thoughts at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Cortland, November 15 2009
I want to say a few words about love and nonviolence. But first, a few words about faith, for I want to situate love and nonviolence in faith. There is a popular idea about faith that faith is believing in something that is very hard to believe in, because it is most unlikely. If it is likely, you do not need faith. The tooth fairy comes to mind. That she exists is most unlikely. We might even say, it is unbelievable, so to believe in the tooth fairy you throw away any credibility or plausibility test and believe the impossible anyway. For many people, faith in God is like that.
Paul Tillich said something different about faith. He said, “Faith is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern.” Notice that faith is not something that you do. It is something that happens to you. Something grasps you. An ultimate concern gets a hold of you. You can’t shake it off. It becomes the most important thing for you. It defines you. It shapes you. It changes you. That is a very different view of faith to the popular “believing in the incredible and unlikely.” I like Tillich’s way of thinking about faith.
That brings me to love and nonviolence, for I have to say that I have been grasped by an ultimate concern and that ultimate concern is love. Love is closely connected to nonviolence. Let me explain what I mean.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said that human beings are social animals. The English mystical poet John Donne said, “Nobody is an island.” Philosopher and mystic alike tell us something important about human life: we are made for relationships. Where Aristotle says we are social, I prefer to say we are relational. Social is too humanistic for me. We are made for relationship not just with other human beings (the social aspect of life) but with non-human animals too, and with the environment we live in, and with the divine herself. We are relational animals. We are part of a great web of interconnectedness.
We relate to the Other. I have capitalized the word Other. When you capitalize a word where it would not normally be so, you indicate that you are speaking of a particularly rich concept. Other (with a capital “O”) stands for all those with who we are in relationship. So, from now on when I say Other, I want you to think of all those others (people, animals, fish, bugs, rivers, trees, all that is, the divine). We are made for relationship with the Other.
The tragedy of human life is that we have so often made a mess of that relationality. We have used and abused the Other. We have hurt and ignored the Other. We have focused on ourselves and our own needs at the expense of the Other.
It is how it might be otherwise that has grasped me. That is my ultimate concern. That is my state of faith. That which has grasped me is love and nonviolence. You might find it strange that I join those two words. But, love and nonviolence have been used interchangeably by adepts of spirituality, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. If you read their writings you will often find the two words used to mean the same thing. To love someone is to be nonviolent toward them. To be nonviolent is to love. Both words are very full words, like the Hebrew word shalom. Shalom means peace, but more than the mere absence of war. Shalom is the fullness of well being; life lived in all its goodness and glory. Shalom is life thriving in goodness, peace and well being. Love and nonviolence are words like that. More than the mere absence of hatred or violence. Love and nonviolence are very positive concepts that speak of life as it could be if only we achieved our potential as divine image bearers.
Love and nonviolence are relational words. They speak to us of the Other. The Other is everyone with whom we have a relationship, and we have a relationship with everyone and evrything. I grant it is not the same relationship with all that is, but, still, we do have a relationship. It is a universal requirement to love.
In my writing, I have been working a lot with the ideas of love and nonviolence and I can’t say much in the time we have today. I will share just one aspect of love and make some practical application of it.
The aspect I call the fourfold effect of love and nonviolence. The effect is how nonviolence looks in practice; how love looks in practice.
- To do good for the Other (beneficence).
- To do no harm to the Other (non-maleficence).
- To respect the personhood and integrity of the Other (autonomy).
- To work for the justice of the Other (justice).
How does this work out in our lives? Nonviolence, love becomes our guide. We relate to the Other in loving, nonviolent ways. We seek good and no harm, we respect the Other and where justice is lacking, we seek justice for the Other. So far, so good! But that is every general. It is important for each of us to find a sphere of influence where we can practice nonviolence. For me, I have found my sphere in leading, with +Jane, a small ecumenical religious order where we try to practice these things. It is in teaching where I seek to be a loving nonviolent mentor to students. It is in writing about these things in books and journals. It is also, for us, in the area of foster care. We have three grown children and we have cared, over the years, for over 70 children. These children have been mostly victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Most have known little love. Most have been socialized in violence. We have made it our task to create a nonviolent home where we demonstrate to these children a different way: a way of nonviolence and love.
Love is the work of a lifetime. Nonviolence is a life long practice. I hope that you have been grasped by such an ultimate concern. I hope that you have found or are finding a sphere of influence where you can be a nonviolent, loving presence to the Other.
+Ab. Andy