Parker Palmer: Violence
“Violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering.” Parker Palmer, p. 48, On the Brink of Everything, Grace, Gravity & Getting Old, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.2018.
I am not even one quarter the way through this recent book by Parker Palmer and already have most of what I have read underlined. I am especially moved by this quote about violence from a commencement address by Parker Palmer to the class of 2015 at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
We daily see this in our lives. Violence comes from accumulated suffering that we and generations before us can no longer bear. Violence is grief that cannot find any other outlet or transformation. Maybe we have just inherited this way to respond to grief. Violence is grief over the loss of identify, loss of what we think may be ours, loss over loved ones, loss of land, loss of life’s work, loss of the rights that others have, loss of food, shelter, loss of love.
Grief is a powerful energy. I know it best in working with people in a grief recovery group, Walking the Mourner’s Path. Grief saps us of all energy. Grief takes up all our energy. We at times become paralyzed. When we are grieving, we can become violent to others, blaming them for the loss of our loved one. We can become violent to ourselves, becoming bitter, a victim.
There is hope, great hope. I have seen this enormous energy transformed into something other than violence. It can be transformed into empathy for others who are suffering as we hear their story. When suffering moves away from its own pain and reaches out to the pain of others, it becomes love. It can become compassion. Compassion leads to ways to move through the suffering, especially in community, that are nonviolent.
Suffering may not be the only factor in violence, but it may help to look at violence in ourselves and others and the world to see what part suffering may play in it. This involves looking at what must be going on in ourselves and others with some compassion when violence raises its ugly head.
Our faith stories teach us that finding love and compassion out of suffering can lead to resurrection experiences.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com