Gentleness
and Strength
“The
inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to
authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty,
and the inevitability of something.”
Meredith
Monk
We
live in a culture that does not value gentleness. Nowadays, we're
into to guns, guts and glory. I would despair if I didn't know that
this is a cycle that will pass with time. We seem to think that to
show mercy, to refuse to rise to insult and intolerance, is weak and
therefore unacceptable. We need to rattle our sabers and shout
invectives to make our enemies quake.
Once
when I was wearing a pink shirt, a woman, who prided herself on being
a strong feminist, told me, “There's no power in pink!” What a
silly notion. The very power of the feminine is in its softness, its
openness, its eros. It is not in being a mini-man that a woman finds
her strength. Saint Frances de Sales said, “Nothing is so strong as
gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” There is truly no
one more attractive than a man who is strong enough to be gentle, who
does not have to show his supposed superiority in bravado.
Most
often, when my first response to something is hostility, which
believe me, happens a lot, I know that fear has been triggered. If
I'm strong enough, I will follow that fear down to discover what is
at the bottom of it, what is 'at the bone'. What I find is that I am
afraid of losing something I love, or I am afraid of being abandoned,
or I am afraid that I am not the favored one. One of these infantile
fears has triggered an equally infantile response from me. If I can
be authentic about that child-like fear, I can comfort myself back to
maturity, and respond differently.
In
our world today, we cannot afford to be childish in our response to
others. We need to grow up. We can deal with others, including our
enemies, with gentleness born of the true strength. In our personal
relationships, and in our global relationships, we will find our real
power in refusing to be dragged into anger and intolerance. If we can
do that, others will follow us because they choose to, and not
resentfully, because they fear us.
In
the spirit,
Jane
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