Love is the only bridge

The most common substitute for the legitimate suffering of self is the illegitimate suffering of others.

That's the heading of today's offering from Richard Rohr in Wondrous Encounters.  And who wouldn't feel (as we used to say in the fundamentalist church I attended briefly in my late 20's) "convicted" by that?  Is there anyone alive who hasn't at least once responded to personal attack by turning around and either attacking back or attacking someone else?

"Well, God," says Rohr in today's prayer, "I sure do not like to hear this, but show me how it might be true in my life.  Do I also "kill" others as a substitute for those necessary deaths to myself?"

Suffering, the Buddhists tell us, is universal: what matters is how we respond to it.  Sometimes we respond with vengeance and with anger.  My mother always used to say "It takes two to tango."  She was careful to remind me that feelings of injustice are rarely one-sided; that whatever anger we may feel toward others is often masking a reluctance to accept our own culpability; our own unwillingness to change.

But that can be a slippery slope: those of us who were raised not to value ourselves, and to believe that anger is wrong, might find ourselves repeatedly thrust into situations in which the anger and the violence are being directed toward us, though we do not deserve it.  And if we do not have a strong sense of our own value, we may allow that to continue rather than taking a stand and extricating ourselves from the situation.

And then, of course, there is that temptation to be too forgiving, to defend or justify the inappropriate actions of ourselves or others by pointing out the real or imagined slights that drive the behaviors.

This, I think, is one of the trickiest aspects of living: how can we hold that steady path between self-righteous anger and excessive humility?  How do we know when to accept and when to resist?  It's a difficult task, to scan your life, to seek out whatever anger and injustice you might be feeling,  and to examine your conscience and actions for your own contributions to the situation.  Whether we are too quick to anger or too easily cowed, our resistance to seeing our own culpability can blind us, our weakness and self-recriminations can disable us, and the guilt we feel when we finally see can be crippling.

The only solution, really, is love.  If we understand at a deep and complete level that we are loved, it can be easier to accept our own responsibility when we make mistakes, to express our objections to others' behaviors without condemnation, and to understand that each of us -- both the attacker and the attacked -- deserves to be treated with respect.  Love can provide the bridge to healing, both the bridge that allows us to re-connect and the bridge that enables us to walk away.

Though, as a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he has heard some of the most devastating stories of human brutality, Desmond Tutu nonetheless continues to reassure us that God's love is universal and unlimited; that there is enough love to create whatever bridges we may need to ease the suffering of the world. God loves and forgives each of us -- both the vengeful and the victim.

"Right now, 
in this moment, 
I hold the hand of my beloved child
My dear one who is blinded by suffering.
In my other hand
I hold the hand of my beloved child
My dear one whose savagery and shame
hide me from sight.
But I am here
beside you both,
Between, within, and all around you both.
I AM."