Love Thy Enemy

Before I can proceed with the various aspects of training the body, mind, and soul, I must make a note of something important.  I have been searching for others with whom to explore this way, and have found several.  Last night, we began to do a bit of training, focusing on ways to protect or aid others in distress.  In particular, we focused on a specific situation and how one could address it without escalating the situation into greater violence, and most specifically how we could ensure the safety of the Other.  We found that certain responses were more effective than others, and certain techniques more valuable than others.  At the time I thought the exercise fruitful and valuable.  I realized today that if it bore fruit, that fruit tasted more like failure.

What do I mean by this?  I mean that I forgot my own lessons.  If the human person is not simply body, mind, or spirit, but all three, then any response in a given situation must involve all three.  But we focused almost entirely on the physical.  We fell into the same trap as  most martial arts.  Even focused on helping another instead of on defending the self, we did not respond with the whole human person, nor did we attempt to address whole human people, save in rare moments.  We discovered that our instincts tended towards solving situations with violence, what we didn't discover was how we objectified both the aggressor and the victim.

A Christian martial way must, by necessity, recognize the human persons involved in any situation.  We cannot deal with objects called the victim, or the attacker, or the back up, or whatever we might come up with while training.  The Christian in such a situation must give his whole self, his whole person to the saving of all the persons in a given moment of need.  The person attacking needs help no less than the person being attacked.  Both are hurting, both broken, both in terrible need and great danger.  How can we possibly do this?

I am not utterly certain yet, but one thing I have realized is that the most important technique we could possibly have in any situation is not a punch or a grab or anything of the sort.  It is a smile.  The smile disarms, instead of arming.   It blesses instead of cursing.  It invites instead of escalating.  The only way to help both persons is to meet them as persons, persons whom you love, the one no less than the other, even though their conduct may be utterly unacceptable.  St. Vincent de Paul said something along these lines, that the poor would only forgive us for serving them or helping them if they knew how much we loved them.  Well in any situation where human persons are being assaulted there is a terrible poverty present.  And any action of ours, particularly one that thwarts a selfish will, might be reciprocated with the sort of vengeful pride which we associate with even greater violence.  We must make ourselves the servants of the very men or women whose actions we despise.

Christ said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God."  Today I learned that this is the essence of our way, to make peace.  I don't know the origins of the proverb, but it was said, "He who desires peace would do well to prepare for war."  I think this especially valuable.  We will only be able to respond appropriately, with love, with patience, with joy, if we prepare for such times as when they will be most tried.  We will train for war - physical, mental, spiritual, and all three commingled.  We will train for them so that when war comes, we can make peace.  We may study violence.  We may even at times be forced to use violence.  But what we must take care to do is be the one humiliated, not the one humiliating.  And for that, we have to be strong enough to take it.  Thus we must respond with our whole self, our minds and spirits no less than our bodies.  It isn't enough to interpose or intervene.  We must cajole, convince, rebuke, implore, and offer up our own pride to gain even the smallest crack in theirs.  We must recognize in them that grand beauty and divine mystery which is the human person.  We must appeal to that whole person, defend that whole person, love that whole person.  Nothing less will suffice.  More on this to come.