The delicate balance of revolution and peace blurs more every day. We are taught our whole lives to love, to share, to live in tolerance, and always consider the opposite side of what seems so clear to us. Yet, we are also instructed to stand up to injustice, to declare our beliefs, to always hold that answer in our back pocket for the moment someone asks, why do you believe? Unfortunately it seems that too often the answer has been stuffed in that pocket for so long, so folded and creased, so worn on its edges, that when it is pulled out it is presented as deflated and flat. And like a wobbly Jenga game, we hope they don't see the piece that is ready to be pulled free, the gap in our armor.
However, there are those rare moments when indignation forces itself through the plastic training, a nerve has been awakened, a belief has been prodded, and then a whirlwind begins. We are unprepared for the confrontation that feels so inevitable. It would be easier to keep silent. Yet, the pressure keeps building, the hours of sleep get shorter, and wondering is constant.
This is the torture that has wound its grimy hands around my neck. What is the most important of all values? Friendship? Respect? Support to authority? Or justice and truth? I know above all else we should live in love. But I see so little love. The line of revolution and peace gets more blurry while the battle line becomes clearer. I see that line and wonder what next? Do we sharpen our plows to swords, or continue to plod on, sowing the seed, leaving a trail of growth, hoping as we sweat the day away that others will follow? Both require a breathtaking amount of sacrifice.
And then I return to love, and patience and being a living example, keeping fresh the answer for anyone who asks. No creases or soiled and unused answers. I continue to cry out for wisdom, and for strength, because the silent battle is the hardest to fight. It rages not only against the transgression, but also against myself and the desire to give up the fight, the fight of leading the way with love.
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