We have power in our hands – how are we to live with it?

Posted by Rob Lewis

These hands we have, these words, this voice. I never gave them the power to be tender, I never gave them the power to cause pain but I learned that my hands and the hands of others could become a source of pain and tenderness. This is a frightening realisation when you pause to reflect on it; it can be something of a burden to live with such a realisation. This power in our hands, in our voices, in our words and in our hearts; can we be trusted with such power; how should we live with such a gift; how should we live with the burden that comes with these powers that we have?

Could we withdraw and spend our years at school learning how to be tender with our power? Isn’t this what it means to ‘love’ - to be tender with whatever power we have? In this fast paced stressful modern world, which seems to be getting faster and more stressful year on year, how are we supposed to have the time to pause, to dwell in stillness, to take time out in gentle contemplation in order to work out how best to live and use the power that is within us? It seems clear that without opportunities for us to practice stillness and to dwell in peace then it will always be a struggle for love to grow within us. We will become increasingly less able in our relationships, in our social and economic structures to see that power is something we were each given whilst our ultimate task is to exercise that power with great discern and tenderness, which entails a great respect for stillness and peace.

The remarkable thing, though, is how much hope there is in humanity. Our capacity for love and kindness is inspiring. In spite of the times we live in and the great abuses of power resulting in injustice, destruction of peace and hope for many that can be witnessed daily around the world, and in our own communities, we still manage to find much tenderness in our lives as a gift from others (or from us towards others). This capacity for love, is it our own? Do you ever remember choosing to be a creature capable of love? You might say that we learn to become loving creatures; we choose to work at becoming a loving creature. I’d agree with this but we can only work on becoming a loving creature in so far as nature has endowed us with such a capacity for love to start with. You can’t make an animal learn to speak if the capacity for language isn’t already there, like wise you cannot learn how to practice as a loving creature if the natural capacity for love isn’t already there. In evolutionary terms our loving capacity is nothing more than the product of a random event, this may be so, but all the same, here we are with these incredible powers brought about by what appears to be chance (not that anyone knows for sure but best explanation from empirical observation encourages us to accept this). We are consciously aware of the powers we have and we gradually learn how to use them. How are we to live with such knowledge, such self awareness? How do we feel when we step out into the world, in to each moment, each situation in this life, knowing that such power is ours to wield; knowing that by some random chance that such powers are just there ready for us to use?

A close friend of mine sometimes speaks of growing up in Liverpool in the early 60s as a young lad of about twelve. He recalls seeing his older brother being involved in many fights as ‘teddy boys’ fought each other and their rivals. This may sound romantic but as a young boy he was terrified by what he saw; knuckle dusters, knives, coshes and chains; he didn’t want to grow up. If this was what he had to face as a working class male in this city then he didn’t want to grow up and have to face that. He also knew that he couldn’t stop himself from growing up, though; forces were at work within him that he had no control over. Under such stressful, fast paced conditions the body produces high levels of cortisol and this inhibits our brain, it restricts our ability to think well, our high order - more rational and more reasonable - thinking becomes debilitated. From what I’ve read about cortisol it would seem that it is a vital hormone that does some incredibly valuable work for us in the body; but high levels of cortisol can be damaging in many ways for us such as suppressing our immune system, along with the gradual depletion of bone and muscle tissue. The truth is that we don’t like stress and it’s bad for us, seemingly bad for any creature. We prefer peace; we prefer the security that comes from knowing that power will be exercised with tenderness. Yet, here we are in these incredibly stressful lives and what else can we realistically expect will be produced when socio-cultural and economic structures are the way they are?

I suppose then, it makes sense to say that we each need to spend time developing peace within ourselves, developing a practice of power exercised with tenderness and to encourage our social and economic structures to promote and bring about the same. To believe this is right, to feel in the depth of one’s heart that this matters above all things is to see, is to deeply desire and work towards what Christians call ‘the kingdom of God’ and Buddhists might call ‘nirvana’. We have work to do on ourselves and in the world; ‘the kingdom of God’ has waited long enough. This is our responsibility, this is a shared vision that goes by different names; the names or labels do not matter, what matters is the vision we each share in our hearts. Can we put aside our labels and work together? Surely we can take steps towards the realisation of that which matters most to us all, to our children, parents, brothers, sisters and neighbours, to the earth and all the creatures within it. We have wasted too much time already; how much more time do you think we have left to waste? Shall we start today, right now, together; and not give up until that final breath?