Gentle

This word has been the center of my gravity for well over a year now. It is the state of being that I most respect. It is the state of being that I most desire. And it keeps calling to me. Sometimes I answer, “I am coming.” Other times, it just feels like a million miles away. You see I came out swinging, due to my bumpy entry into the world as I talked about in my post “The Gift.” Not that I think most people would describe me as a particularly belligerent type- I am more of the quiet, even-keeled type. My mother, furthermore, trained me well to be deeply understanding of others. Nevertheless, I do think that it generally comes across that I’m not somebody that you want to cross. This is to say that you can feel my edges if you just pay the slightest bit of attention. Anyone who has actually dared to cross said edges would testify that, no, no in fact you really don’t want to go there.

The people who I admire most in the world are the gentle ones. Our culture, by contrast, tends to favor the strong, the bold, the unyielding, the uncompromising, the headstrong. “Well there’s lambs and there’s lions,” to quote a song by Chase Rice for all of you country music fans out there. When the title of this album (Lambs & Lions) and the aforementioned lyrics to the song “Lions” came across my radar this week, my immediate reaction was… lambs. I’ll go with the lambs. The song, of course, celebrates the lions. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to dis on the lions. As mentioned, I am such a beast and I am not about hating on myself. That would be very unlamblike of me, which wouldn’t help my cause.

Of course the metaphor way oversimplifies the situation. In biblical terms, the lamb is that which is sacrificed and the lion is that which rises above, but the reality is… no lamb, no lion. You see if the story were that Jesus had fought back and prevailed against his persecutors to escape crucifixion in typical lion-like fashion then that would have been just, well, more of the same in a long line of despots. But as the story goes, the strength of the lion actually emerges from the gentleness of the lamb. They are two sides of the same coin, which is to say that this is one of those paradoxical both/and situations. And this is why the meek shall inherit the earth. You can, incidentally, find the essence of this story in every religion and wisdom tradition. What it boils down to is, love wins. Love wins because true power can only ever come from love and never from fear.

But that sure doesn’t seem to be the way the world works, does it? Yesterday the great Dr. Cornel West spoke at Prairie View A&M University, where Shannon and I work. Due to some physical challenges we both had this week, we made the call to be gentle with ourselves and not go in spite of the huge disappointment of that. I bring this up just to take a moment to say that step one in becoming gentle is to first be gentle with yourself… which is not something that I am traditionally well-versed in. Fortunately, it was live-streamed so we got to watch from the comfort of our couch. Although it would have been something to be there in person to feel the energy of full-on Brother West addressing his people, we were grateful for the opportunity to watch from the couch.

If you ever get the opportunity to see Dr. West speak, do it. I am so incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to take his class at Princeton. Hearing him speak reminds me that he has played a role in shaping me. So much of what he had to say to our students is reflected in what I teach now too. In fact one of my students texted me afterward to say that she thought of me when he said “you’re an extension of me and I’m an extension of you.” Yes, he spoke of interbeing, not that he used the word. If you are not at all familiar with Dr. West, what you will quickly find out is that he is a lion. He too came out swinging. He knows this about himself. But he is that particular type of lion that is driven by lambhood. He is what he calls on all of us to be- a love warrior. In other words… a lamb-lion.

If you asked me to choose one living person who is most exemplary of the Christian faith, Dr. West would be my hands down choice. As I was saying, it sure doesn’t seem like love wins in our world. It sure as heck doesn’t seem that way in the face of oppression, be it overt or covert. So we learn to fight for our survival. Those of us who are successful in our culture have become what Dr. West correctly labels “well adjusted to an unethical mode of being.” Cuts like a knife, doesn’t it?

Yet he isn’t telling us this because he hates us, he is telling us this because he loves us deeply. He tells us to remind us that we are more than we have accepted ourselves to be. And in the same vein as the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he would remind us that we can’t fight fire with fire. Well, we can, but so long as we do so we will end up with nothing more than despots. We have tried to overcome unchecked lionhood with more unchecked lionhood for the entirety of human history now. If we want to inherit the earth, by which in practical terms I mean simply survive ourselves for starters, we must invoke the lamb to realize true lionhood. We must evolve to lamb-lionhood.

So bring on the gentle. As I delve deeper and deeper into my inner layers, the inner child that I am meeting is oh-so-gentle. She is tender. She is vulnerable. She is sweet. She cares immensely. She is full of grace and understanding. She doesn’t come out swinging. She instead stands quietly in stillness. She gives space for a world that at once she doesn’t understand, and yet she feels for. She yearns for its freedom. She loves it immensely, even as it cuts her deeply. She is standing there waiting with open arms and an open heart. This child is in you too. She is our common heritage. She is our humanity. Long live the lambs. 

I say this only because we are so out of balance. I am so out of balance. I’ve got the lion gig down. So many of us do, and we trample our own and other’s inner lambs in the process. This gives rise to and reinforces all that is unethical in our world. To correct this, I/we must take the time and effort to recalibrate to our inner lamb. This is the inner work that I described in my post “Whatever.” As I stated in the beginning of this post, gentleness is the center of gravity of this work. What helps me to stay on the path is the strong pull toward a gentle state of being.

It helps to have role models. For my fellow Houstonians in sustainability world, I will give you my example- Pat Greer. Pat is the epitome of gentle, a true lamb whose being exudes love. No one will disagree. And true to course, perhaps by now you will not be surprised when I tell you that she is fierce. She is a lion beyond measure who has paved the way for our evolution in more ways than we can count. I bring Pat to mind fairly often these days as a way to resonate with her being. Having a Pat helps. These are the elders of our world. Such elders demonstrate our profound safety. They demonstrate that it is o.k. to lower your dukes. Look for these people in your life and abide there. Be gentle.