Spiritual Warfare

"Jesus said to His disciples: 'To you who hear, I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless whose who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. . . Do unto others as you would have them do to you. . . Stop judging and you will  to be judged. Stop condemning and you will  not be condemned. . For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.' " -[Luke 6: 27-38.]

Children are "held captive" to the conditions under which they are raised. As long as they reside in their parents' home, they remain subject to the conditions there.

In the home where I grew up, I was hit; I was not fed consistently; I was told there is no God; after I reached age 14, my chronic medical condition was no longer treated; if I said that I was cold and needed a sweater, I was told to stop 'acting up just to get attention.' I went to school with black eyes.

In any situation in life, whether a child or an adult, we have a choice - to respond to conditions with either Hate or Love.

I was the younger child and the only daughter. I knew I had no power. I knew that I had to bide my time until I was old enough to make my escape. This would take 1) saving money, because a bit of savings make you beholden to no one; and 2) getting my education, because that is something no one can take away from you.

But I also knew that if I stayed angry and vengeful, I would be the one to lose. So, as the old expression says, I chose to "lead, follow or stay out of the way." Often, I would lead by making peace. If family members argued, I would pitch in to share the work load; even as a child, I would mend clothing, tend the garden or run mail to the postal box.

Or, I would "follow", by going on family outings I did not care much for, or sitting quietly waiting for time to pass.

Or, I would "get out of the way", literally by stealing off to sit under a pine tree in a neighbor's yard, or by spending many hours in my room, reading books, singing songs or doing needlework.

Sometimes, anger and Hate overwhelm the human psyche. We explode with emotional force, destroying everything in our path, including ourselves. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "A riot is the language of the unheard. . . Riots are massive temper tantrums from a neglected and voiceless people."

There are those who intentionally live a life of riot, and schemes to overpower. They believe that this violent resistance equates to strength. These are the folks who seriously misinterpret and underestimate the Christian who walks in Love. Christians are seen as weak, foolish, and naive.

Those who level this charge often quote Luke in this Scripture - "To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic." In other words, this Scripture is taken to mean that in a case of any conflict at all, a Christian will lay down and capitulate.

But, I have heard one brilliant interpretation of this version, that if a person offers the other cheek, then witnesses will see the attacker slap the person both front and back-handed. And if the attacker takes the person's cloak AND his tunic, then the person will be left naked. And so, in this instance, who appears worse in others' eyes, than the attacker himself?

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "True nonviolent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of Love, in the faith that the recipient of violence . . . may [prompt] a sense of shame in[side] the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and change of heart." He also said, "There's a great deal of difference between
non-resistance to evil and nonviolent resistance. Certainly I am not saying that you sit down and patiently accept injustice. I'm talking about a very strong force, where you stand up with all your might against an evil system. You are resisting but you come to see that tactically as well as morally it is better to be nonviolent."

Martin Luther King talked about how "the world doesn't like people like Gandhi. They don't like people like Christ, they don't like people like Lincoln". This is because their pure Love acts as a powerful rebuke to the Haters.

King always urged his civil rights activists to never retaliate or respond with violence or hate. During the protests in Birmingham, Alabama, Police Chief Bull Connor used firehoses with water pressure so strong, the bark peeled off trees, and one civil rights activist was propelled by the force of the water into the side of a building. When young teens joined the protests, the nation could see Connor turn his dangerous tactics onto children. At that, the world began to truly see the Evil in the perpetuation of the segregated South, for what it was.

Martin Luther King called the power of nonviolent resistance, "Creative Suffering."  In Birmingham, the city ran out of jails and paddy wagons to transport and arrest protesters. As many as were jailed, more came streaming out to protest. Just as in the same way, in Rome, they ran out of crosses and they nailed Christians to fences; and yet, the Christians were not extinguished. If anything, the violent persecutions made the Christians even more determined.

King said, "Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is the the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, Hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate is too great a burden to bear."

In the end, King said, "The great tragedy is that Christianity failed to see that it had the revolutionary edge. You don't have to go to Karl Marx to learn how to be a revolutionary. I didn't get my inspiration from Karl Marx; I got it from a man named Jesus, a Galilean saint who said He was anointed to heal the broken-hearted."

And so, in my own Life, I engage in Spiritual Warfare, by loving others radically. I refuse to destroy myself by Hate. As St. Paul said, I do not "repay evil with evil but repay evil with good."

King said, " I don't care who you are, I don't care where you live, in every one of us there is a civil war going on in your life. Every time you set out to be good, there's something pulling on you, telling you to be evil.  . . trying to get you to hate. "

But NO, I fight the good fight, I keep the Faith. I LOVE, as a strategic countermove calculated to neutralize Hate. My Love is a strong light that illuminates the Evil around me, and delineates that Evil for what it is - a cowardly, destructive force that cannot win in a world where God always has the last Word.


[Related Postings: "I Hate Evil", 3/18/18.]

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2019. All Rights Reserved.

[Quotes from "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborn Carson, 1998).