Gentle

Here she is.

She has found a visor.

Because she is a super hero. A licky super hero. Her super power is licking everything.

Soundtrack to this post: Bethel's snores in bed next to me.
There's a DTS lecture going on downstairs and she's too poorly to sleep anywhere that i'm not, so we're all three of us holed up in our bedroom. It's quite nice. John is reading Harry Potter and thus is in his happy place. I'm trying to type silently, but it's not going well because of all the thumpy PASSIONATE THOUGHTS.

This post is probably going to suck because i'm a bit poorly too. My head is full of thinkings that are half thought because of headache fog that gets in the way, and I should probably be napping too but that would be to admit defeat. Shan't.

So I think today we (the royal we? my many personalities? Beth is helping me type?) shall write about winning. Because i'm in a nation, and on a planet, that thrives on confrontation and aggression and assertiveness.
On a local level, people are snappy and quick to disapprove - you're doing this wrong, you've got that wrong, you need to hurry up, you need to slow down, you need to be less stupid or hot or cold or busy or lazy...I have grown to expect obvious disapproval whenever I venture out of the house. Should probably just stamp FAIL on my own forehead. Would save time. On a global level, things just seem to suck. Fighting for freedom, fighting for money or for power or for respect or for stuff or for someone else's stuff. This world seems to me - from my tiny vulnerable stranger in a foreign land perspective - to be big and angry and a bit scary. Don't believe me? Watch some news. Google people trafficking. Talk to someone who has been abused. Look at how many children self harm. Look at how many mums and dads have to watch their children die of stupidly treatable illnesses. Find out where your bank invests your money. Try going a night without a home. Try being a woman in a country that considers you less than a dog. Try being a man in a culture that demands you show no weakness and need no love. Try getting off heroin.

I live my life against a backdrop of this knowledge of a broken globe, and I think we all do. Seeking family in a hostile world, relieved by the love and comforts around us, sometimes engaging but generally hiding from the things we can't change. Refuge. It's a beautiful thing and it's of God.

But you know what else is of God? Justice. Compassion. Holy Rage. Action.
I've got a lot of rage.
In all the passion of hating suffering, do I get angry too? Do I get confrontational too? Do I stomp about shouting at the world to change because if it doesn't i'll count to three? Do I pick up a sword to kill a murderer? Do I launch a missile at the bad guys?

What Would Jesus Do? (It was only a matter of time before that got in there, people. I'm a Christian missionary. I can't avoid cheesy Jesus acronyms. I need help.)

They came to kill him, to arrest him illegally and try him with no defence, to torture him to death because he told them God is love and you're not loving. They proved him right with whips and with nails, with wood and with thorns.
So his friends get angry, they get some Holy rage, they take some action and take out their swords and they draw some blood. Yeah! Justice! Defend the weak! Assertiveness!
But he told them to stop that. Put the soldier's ear back on (he can do that kind of stuff y'know) and freaked the guy out a bit. Put his hands in the cuffs, his head in the hood, went with them on purpose. Took it.

So there is a different way to change the world. Stropping out or taking arms may not work out. It hasn't yet. 
Last night we were worshiping and our friend Daniel was holding his tiny baby girl and she is so beautiful and small, and I realized something important. God is the God who invented babies, tiny little bundles of handle-with-care. He sees the planet he made that is tearing itself to pieces, and against that backdrop he is the God who makes life. Tiny life with chubby hands and wondering eyes and licky dribbles. He made that vulnerable, gentle, sweetness that is a baby. That is part of who he is.  

He is at odds with the suffering we see. He is at odds with aggression. He heals the soldiers who come to kill him. 

The world is often violent and angry and hurting. People are often violent and angry and hurting. But there is a weapon we haven't all worked out how to use yet and it is gentleness. 

Taking it.

This is what I need to do here: the Bible says to come at things in the opposite spirit. You yell at me? I'll whisper back. You want to win? I'll step aside. You take my stuff? Here, have some more.
You want to shout at me in the street? I'll say thank you, yes of course my baby needs a snow suit in June, you're so right. Turn some cheeks. Smile.

Is it hard here? Yes, the culture is much more aggressive than i'm used to. But this country is beautiful, these people are worth so much more than I will ever be able to give them in my lifetime, and i'd like to see how British people would behave after centuries of oppression and communism.
So I will try to be gentle.
Because that way things may start to change. Jesus FTW.
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