Hello Friends,
This morning I was reflecting on the human capacity for both GOOD and EVIL and found myself feeling a mix of HUMILITY and HOPE.
Much love, and happy Wednesday.
βοΈ,
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
I was reading an essay written by my friend Shane Claiborne this morning where he referred to a quote from Henry Nouwen who once said that "in the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands."
Nouwen then went on to say to say that ...
When we see someone else's ability to torture, we know that we are capable of that same evil.
AND.
When we see someone else's ability to forgive, we know that we are capable of that same forgiveness.
In other words, we're all one ... right?
We all have within us the capacity to love and build up like Mother Teresa or hate and destroy like Hitler. I mean, sure - we'd like to say, "nah, I would never ..." ... but can we really say that? If we were placed into the same world as someone like Hitler ...
Given his family.
Given his experiences.
Given his religious beliefs.
Given his aspirations and goals.
Given his power.
... Can we really say for 100% certain that we'd be any different that he was? Maybe we wouldn't have gone to the extremes that he did (or maybe we would?), but isn't it at least possible that the same hate and evil could still bubble through our veins and make its way out in all different sorts of ways?
It's a scary thought, but a necessary one, I think. Why? Because this reality that we all share the same capacity for evil and for good can help us live with a healthy balance of both HUMILITY and HOPE.
HUMILITY - humility because it's all too easy to look at someone else's mistakes or someone else's "sins" or someone else's evil and point our finger at them and focus on how bad or wrong or evil or whatever that they are.
"I can't believe what he did."
"Can you believe that she did that?"
"He needs to pay for what he did."
"She deserves whatever she has coming to her."
It's easy to look down on the murderers and rapists and racists of the world and talk about what a pile of trash they are, but when we look at people like that and realize that they have stories and pasts and experiences and upbringings just like we do and then begin to wonder if our places in the world were swapped so that we were them and they were us ...
Can you see yourself in their hands?
Can you see yourself in the hands of the oppressor?
I think they deserve to be punished, for sure, and they need to be held accountable for what they've done; but when I see myself in their hands ... I don't know. It sort of does something to my heart. I don't know what it is exactly, but it makes me feel softer towards them and it makes me feel a longing for them to move beyond where they are so that they can find some peace.
When I realize that I could just as easily be in their shoes, it makes me hate them a whole lot less and makes me feel a whole lot less smug.
Does that make sense?
And HOPE - when I see someone else's capacity to forgive or to do good in the world and I realize that the same capacity is within me ... it makes me feel empowered to do all sorts of things with my own gifts and passions.
Right?
It makes me feel hopeful that I, too, can make a difference.
It makes me feel hopeful that I, too, can make a dent in the universe.
It makes me feel hopeful that I, too, can encourage someone.
It makes me feel hopeful that I, too, can carry myself with love and grace.
In a world that is filled with so many things to be sad about and so many things to be angry and disturbed about, when I see someone tap into their true humanity, when I see someone live from the Divine spark with them, when I see someone act out of the radical love and grace and inclusion that is buried deep within all of us.
I don't know.
That inspires me to do all sorts of things.
Like, when I went to the Wild Goose Festival back in 2018 and sat in the midst of hundreds of people who were using their gifts and passions to push the world forward with love and inclusion via art and writing and podcasts and projects and churches and teachings and counseling and all sorts of things ... I saw the capacity within myself to do the same and so I went back to my hotel room and recorded episode 1 of the What If Project and 178 episodes later we're still going strong. I looked around at the loving spirits of those in my midst and I had hope that the same capacity to love was buried in me and that if I could tap into it and merge it with my own gifts and talents ... I had hope that I, too, could make the same kind of difference.
Yes:
The capacity of EVIL is within us all - may it HUMBLE us.
The capacity to LOVE and to FORGIVE and to do good is within us all - may it give us HOPE and INSPIRE us in all sorts of ways.
... Be humble, have hope ... go do some good.