Does being Christian mean being nonresistant? Is it more Christian to be compliant or to be clear in our
principles and unrelenting in our positions? And if we are to be clear and unrelenting, in what ways?
“Those preach patience who have never known pain,” wrote Henry Bohn, a nineteenth-century
publisher. And the position makes sense. There is one kind of gentleness that talks people into putting
up with injustice for the sake of their immortal souls. To “offer it up” becomes a way of life rooted in
the call to live a warped and specious kind of virtue. It calls for slaves to love slavery here so that they
can be free in eternity. But the truth is that slavery cannot ever be justified, let alone loved.
No, gentleness is not about forbearance. Mere forbearance can be masochism, a kind of neurotic
delight in suffering. Gentleness is about the ability to bring truth, without at the same time bringing
destruction.
To be gentle is to unmask the inequities around us without destroying those who prefer to maintain
the masks. Gentleness implies that we will do no name-calling. Gentleness implies that we will not
ridicule. Gentleness implies that we will do no harm in our zeal for good. Gentleness implies that we will
not become what we say we hate.
At a meeting of the World Council of Religious Leaders in Jerusalem, I saw a living model of gentleness
that burned itself into my brain in ways that make me even more certain of the grandeur of gentleness.
We had come to Israel and the Palestinian Territories to see, as wise and loving outsiders, what it was
that religion itself could do to unravel the Gordian knot that blocks the coming of peace in the Middle
East.
At first blush, the conversation might have seemed to an observer to be, at best, a series of pious
platitudes to be tolerated but never taken seriously. After all, what kind of politics is politics based on
spiritual values?
Then an older, seasoned dharma master from Taiwan, who has lived in political tension all his life, rose
to speak. He folded his hands across his chest and said, slowly and gently, to all the warring parties
present: “When two people coming from two different directions try to cross a raging river on the
same log in the same place as the same time, the two of them will meet in the middle, and neither can
pass.” I thought to myself, “Well, that’s exactly what we have in this situation, in fact in most
situations. There is the mother of all standoffs.” But then the master went on. “Unless one of them
backs up,” he paused and smiled, “neither can proceed.”
Clearly, gentleness is about figuring out how to get both people across the same river. Gentleness is
not about either giving up or giving in. It is about the unyielding but gracious pursuit of truth.
principles and unrelenting in our positions? And if we are to be clear and unrelenting, in what ways?
“Those preach patience who have never known pain,” wrote Henry Bohn, a nineteenth-century
publisher. And the position makes sense. There is one kind of gentleness that talks people into putting
up with injustice for the sake of their immortal souls. To “offer it up” becomes a way of life rooted in
the call to live a warped and specious kind of virtue. It calls for slaves to love slavery here so that they
can be free in eternity. But the truth is that slavery cannot ever be justified, let alone loved.
No, gentleness is not about forbearance. Mere forbearance can be masochism, a kind of neurotic
delight in suffering. Gentleness is about the ability to bring truth, without at the same time bringing
destruction.
To be gentle is to unmask the inequities around us without destroying those who prefer to maintain
the masks. Gentleness implies that we will do no name-calling. Gentleness implies that we will not
ridicule. Gentleness implies that we will do no harm in our zeal for good. Gentleness implies that we will
not become what we say we hate.
At a meeting of the World Council of Religious Leaders in Jerusalem, I saw a living model of gentleness
that burned itself into my brain in ways that make me even more certain of the grandeur of gentleness.
We had come to Israel and the Palestinian Territories to see, as wise and loving outsiders, what it was
that religion itself could do to unravel the Gordian knot that blocks the coming of peace in the Middle
East.
At first blush, the conversation might have seemed to an observer to be, at best, a series of pious
platitudes to be tolerated but never taken seriously. After all, what kind of politics is politics based on
spiritual values?
Then an older, seasoned dharma master from Taiwan, who has lived in political tension all his life, rose
to speak. He folded his hands across his chest and said, slowly and gently, to all the warring parties
present: “When two people coming from two different directions try to cross a raging river on the
same log in the same place as the same time, the two of them will meet in the middle, and neither can
pass.” I thought to myself, “Well, that’s exactly what we have in this situation, in fact in most
situations. There is the mother of all standoffs.” But then the master went on. “Unless one of them
backs up,” he paused and smiled, “neither can proceed.”
Clearly, gentleness is about figuring out how to get both people across the same river. Gentleness is
not about either giving up or giving in. It is about the unyielding but gracious pursuit of truth.
HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE GENTLENESS?
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