The Journey of Empowerment

Freedom and Power

Last week, I wrote about the freedom of acceptance, that which comes with surrender, forgiveness, death. No matter our circumstances, we can become a bit more free by letting go.

Other kinds of freedom are connected with power. For instance, some of us have the freedom to make decisions about our own lives. Others of us have lived with freedom long enough that we recognize our emotions and feel comfortable expressing them. If we feel sad or angry, we can say so.

Along with these freedoms are some that only people with external power have the luxury of exercising, such as the ability to disrupt and destroy the lives of others without fear of reprisal. As we denounce men who have harassed and abused women, as we listen to denials and counter-accusations, even if we wonder what exactly is true and what false, it becomes clear that some people have more freedom than others.

Those who go to Ivy League schools, who come from families of wealth, who are tall and beautiful and can command staffs of underlings, often make decisions not only about their own lives, but also about yours and mine. They have the freedom to force some of us into untenable situations, to abuse and harass us. Most of the time when they do so, no one dares challenge them.

Small Abuses of Power

On the face of it, the majority of us aren’t that powerful. We don’t do those things. We aren’t the wicked ones who sit on the judge’s bench, who make the laws, who run the businesses, who police our streets. Are we? Even if not, do we not sometimes make fun of others, try to control family members, or minimize the pain of those who earn our disapproval? Sometimes, whether we are teachers, parents, preachers, correctional officers, chaplains, doctors, lovers, clerks in grocery stores, children on the playground, strangers at the bus stop, or friends, we have all injured the hearts and spirits of those around us, even if in little ways.

Any time we say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” or “That’s stupid,” or “Can’t you do anything right?” or “Don’t eat that, you’re already too fat,” or “Get a job,” we’re shaming someone else. Maybe we want to make ourselves feel powerful or safe or good or in control. Though understanding the why of our behavior can help us change, it doesn’t lessen the hurt. Something as simple as touching another without permission can intimidate and irritate. Don’t think that lack of complaint means approval. We regularly weigh the social costs of voicing displeasure and disagreement.

Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to constrain a person, as when we have to change the diaper of a struggling infant or when an adult erupts out of control, but the act is still a kind of dis-empowerment. Of course, none of us go through life without feeling some shame or frustrated ambition, nor should we. Entitlement flourishes when our power is never checked.

Evil

Yet one who has been forced, while young, to tolerate intrusions, who has regularly been denied the right to interpret his own experience, may end up seeking to control the lives those around him. This can lead to minor transgressions or outright evil.

In Defense for the Devil, one of her mysteries about fictional attorney Barbara Holloway, Kate Wilhelm considers the problem of evil. In this scene, Holloway comes face-to-face with malevolence for the first time in her life. Mystified, she ponders how one might understand this thing we call evil. She concludes it is a force of its own, infesting its host like a virus, infecting anyone who capitulates, rationalizes, accommodates, or denies the evil. To give in to this force only enhances its strength, and anyone who uses it, even without realizing what they’re doing, becomes enslaved to that cruel power. [1]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau explains that a person swept up by this power, a “wicked man,” acts out of fear and an inability to look honestly at his own nature. Unlike the “just man,” who laughs from joy and finds contentment within himself, the wicked man, when he looks within, finds no satisfaction, but only emptiness and shame. Thus he seeks pleasure outside himself, such as by mocking others. If he did not, “he would always be sad.” [2] The wicked man chooses hatred because he has lost the capacity to choose love.

The Enthrallment of the Powerful

So while it may look and even feel like freedom when we can treat others as objects, dismiss their thoughts and feelings, and shatter their lives without experiencing obvious consequences, those who consistently behave with such wickedness end up with empty hearts and tattered souls. If we are in a position of privilege that allows us to claim rights over the bodies and minds of others, and we abuse it by trashing and profiling them, by calling them cruel names and humiliating them in the name of “fun,” we are unlikely to notice the shift in our character toward ossification and decay. We are unlikely to notice the spiritual enslavement that, bit by bit, ensnares us.

Thus the man who oppresses and torments others is far less free than he might think. According to an article in The Atlantic, studies reveal that most people seek power not to gain control over others, but to gain autonomy for themselves. [3] How sad that such autonomy is not a normal part of every person’s life. On the other hand, it is good that a lust for dominance does not motivate all of us.

Even so, it is difficult to hold powerful positions and not be seduced by the lure of privilege or infected by the virus of evil. The person thus made sick is unlikely to recognize how cruelly they are being controlled by that wicked force. Indeed, as they come to answer to their lusts and drives, those caught up in evil’s grasp become as lost as the addict whose trembling nerves crave heroin.

Freeing Ourselves From the Lure of Power

If we are to avoid such enslavement, must we then renounce all forms of worldly power? This is hardly practical, especially if we hope to tilt the arc toward justice. Perhaps in the same way that heroin addicts sometimes get and remain sober, so can those addicted to power. Besides, not everyone becomes beguiled by opioids, so some of us may be less susceptible to power’s lure.

What does it take to remain true to virtue and integrity? Perhaps it means being like Rousseau’s “just man,” developing a stillness and joy within ourselves. In his book Addiction and Grace, Gerald May argues that if we wish to be free to make choices grounded in love, we must be willing to accept the losses that so often come with doing what we know is right. This means that if we want to live a life of recovery, one with an inner strength that cannot be moved, we must be able to “say yes to love and freedom,” even if it hurts. [4] Ultimately, such freedom is the only power that cannot be taken from us.

That sounds good, but how do we get there?

Seeking Empowerment

One answer is a five-staged journey toward empowerment. This is the prescription that Patricia O’Connell Killen outlines in her book Finding Our Voices. Like God creating the universe through logos, or the word, we all create our reality through the language we use. Our task, then, is to speak our truth, and listen to the truths of others, with freedom, love, and the power of partnership rather than that of hegemony.

Finding our voice can be as difficult as healing an addiction, though. Illness, trauma, and shame may keep us silent. Fear may overwhelm us. While the path to empowerment can lead to joy and contentment, the retaliation it sometimes arouses can also lead to the kinds of loss May describes. To become clean and sober, the pain of our addiction must be worse than the pain of recovery. The silence of humiliation and fear strangles us, but is it bad enough for us to face the discomfort of change?

For some it will not be. Those who so seek such change, however, might consider following the five steps Killen adapted from the work of Maria Harris in Dance of the Spirit. These steps are receptivity, remembering, resistance, ritual mourning, and rebirth.

#MeToo

The first step, receptivity, is a kind of awakening. It’s the moment we realize something is not as it should be. For instance, when we give birth to a child, the world looks different. Things we didn’t care about suddenly matter greatly; dangers we didn’t consider become important. Other kinds of mystical experiences can shatter our comfortable illusions, as can traumas or celebrations. In moments of receptivity, we are open to change.

The #MeToo movement is an example of empowerment that started with receptivity. In 1997, Tarana Burke had an awakening. A 13-year-old girl was describing the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather. Listening to her, Burke felt so uncomfortable that she cut the child off and turned away. Not knowing what to say to the girl, with no idea how to help her, Burke felt helpless and inadequate. In her silence, she dis-empowered herself and the teen. [6]

Although some awakenings are wonderful, joyful experiences, others arise out of darkness and despair. Knowing she had failed one child, Burke vowed not to fail others. After ten years of grieving, and thinking, and planning, she started Just Be, Inc., an organization designed to help victims of sexual assault and harassment. Out of this nonproft, Burke hoped a movement would form, one she called Me Too. When, in 2017, the actress Alyssa Milano used Twitter to encourage those who had been sexually assaulted or harassed to tweet #MeToo, hoping in this way to show the world the magnitude of the problem, Burke’s creation took on a new dimension.

On the Path to Empowerment

The #MeToo movement is a kind of remembering, which is the second step. To remember is to tell the stories, to name the suffering, to give voice to those who have been oppressed, enslaved, abused, crippled, or humiliated. Through remembering, the community witnesses the suffering and affirms that the way things are, the way they have been, is wrong.

Out of remembering comes the next step, resistance. We question what we learned as children, what we hear on television, what politicians tell us, what police say. No longer do we simply accept messages of propriety, limitation, subservience, and worthlessness. Instead, we deconstruct them. Resistance brings painful truths to consciousness. We come to see how traditions and behaviors can privilege one class of people over another. This encourages us to say “no” to that which oppresses. This is important. When we learn to speak the “no” that is in our hearts, we can then say an honest “yes.”

A Union with God

In this way, resistance is not only political, but also spiritual. As a chaplain, I sometimes meet with individuals who fear their anger, particularly their anger toward God. Yet when we stifle our emotions, ignore them, push them away, we lose the power of life. Resistance allows us to reclaim that life-giving energy.

Killen writes, “When we resist, we choose the living, pulsating faith of a living relationship with God.” This is even true when what we resist is God Herself, for out of our “no” comes our “yes.” [7] Referring to the writings of Edward Robinson, Maria Harris notes that when we speak our own, true “yes,” we show “our readiness to receive the grace of power.” [8] Thus we open ourselves to grace, mercy, and transformation.

So resistance brings us closer to the divine. When we claim our own truth and the truth of those who stand beside us, we may discover that we can heal. In this healing is empowerment.

The Grief We Must Share

Before we can reach the peace that comes from healing, however, we must take the next step, ritual mourning. When we have questioned and resisted and we see the fertile valley of transformation that spreads before us, we long to leap toward that shimmering vision, as if we did not have to stagger through the mountains and bracken that lie between. But moving forward sometimes means slogging through. First, we must grieve.

Harris calls this spacious place of mourning “the not-doing of Sabbath.” [8] It is a time of silence and stillness, when we have given words to our pain, but have not yet created something new and hopeful out of those words. Although we probably don’t want to feel our sadness, anger, anxiety, loneliness, emptiness, and bitterness, we cannot proceed until we do.

As Killen writes, “Women must mourn their abuse; their rape; their unwantedness; their losses; the voices, projects, life, and dignity that have been denied or stolen from them.” [10] By sharing these losses communally, and by weeping together, we create the ritual mourning that can hold and nurture the intensity of our pain.

Creating Something New

Finally, when we have shed enough tears and held enough stories and burnt enough offerings, there is the final step, the moment of rebirth. This can be the creation of poetry, paintings, music, and dance. It can be an inner newness, an identity based on love and hope and inner strength. The rebirth can involve founding new organizations, such as Burke’s Just Be, Inc., or new religious communities, such as the Sophia Christi Catholic Community led by a women priest, or the women’s seders started by E. M. Broner and Naomi Nimrod who wrote The Woman’s Haggadah.  [11]

Thus, the journey toward empowerment is not just learning to say “no” to what is wrong, but also to say “yes” to something new.

Will there ever be an Eden? Will any Utopian society last? Do any of us travel this path to empowerment once and for all? No. Eden is a myth, and Utopias fall apart. Our inner work, whether we are individuals or a society, is never completely finished.

Even so, when we claim our voice and stand up to the world’s wickedness, we do so not just to change a few laws, but to bring forth a new vision, one based on generosity of spirit and consistent acts of kindness. Michelle Alexander makes this clear in her article, “We Are Not the Resistance.” Those who protested slavery a hundred and fifty years ago “didn’t view themselves as resisters; they were abolitionists.” People who marched and protested during the Civil Rights movement did so not just to resist, but also to re-create. They hoped to build a new society, a “Beloved Community.” [12] Maybe we won’t see such a world in our lifetime, but we can hold the faith that one day it will be so.

Coming to Empowerment

In board rooms, courtrooms, bar rooms, and locker rooms; at construction sites and ship yards; at prep schools and Ivy League colleges; in churches, mosques, temples, and homes; where laws are made and citizens judged, privilege is taught and learned. Some people assume power for themselves; others have power wrested from them. Any of us can end up capitulating to the forces of wickedness and evil. Wilhelm cautions that “a wink, a nod, a hurried glance away, a minor deal, a favor accepted or returned, a denial of word or act, the slightest compromise” may leave us vulnerable to a lust for power and control that can overwhelm even the gentlest heart. [13] We are all susceptible. Even if in only little ways, we have all used our power – and each of us has power over something – to minimize, dehumanize, or stigmatize others.

This is not an indictment. It is simply a reminder that we each have planks in our own eyes, so we should be careful of the motes we purport to see in others. Absolutely, call out evil when you recognize it. Naming the wrongs in our society is one of the first steps to empowerment. When we “speak truth to power,” power gets upset and will lash out. We see that in the current furor over Christine Blasey Ford’s denunciation of Brett Kavanaugh as he is being vetted to sit on the Supreme Court. Our current president, in particular, is an outspoken model for how to use denial and obfuscation to dis-empower others and celebrate oneself. Nonetheless, that does not mean that we who are abused will never abuse others. To speak truth, we must look deeply and with humility into our own hearts so we can find that truth.

Building the Beloved Community

Empowerment means awakening to our true nature, to the love and joy that lies beneath the facade we erect. It means accepting our vulnerability and recognizing our strength. It means grieving that which is lost and celebrating what is true and right and real, both in our own hearts and in the world. Risk is part of empowerment.

Yet no matter what is taken from us by those who wield power like a sledgehammer, once we come into our own voices, once we mourn our loved ones and our dreams, the truth cannot be taken from us. Never again will our hearts be shackled. When have seen the truth, we cannot un-see.

Perhaps the Beloved Community has not taken hold everywhere. Some days it seems no one knows how to care for his neighbors. Yet voices of compassion and justice always rise to the surface, no matter how oppressive the regime. One by one, we can awaken, we can heal our hearts by learning to feel and sharing our grief, and as each of us is reborn, as we each find the power of love within our souls, the world, too, will become as new. Perhaps not today; perhaps not tomorrow. Yet it will happen. As Alexander invites us to remember, the song of justice is not “We Shall Resist,” but “We Shall Overcome.” Some day; some day. If we remain faithful, some day.

In faith and fondness,

Barbara

Credits

1. Wilhelm, Kate, Defense for the Devil, Ashland: Blackstone Audio, 2007, Part 11, Chapter 37.
2. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Autobiographical, Scientific, Religious, Moral, and Literary Writings, Dartmouth College Press, 2013, 195.
3. Beck, Julie, “People Want Power Because They Want Autonomy,” The Atlantic, March 22, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/people-want-power-because-they-want-autonomy/474669/, accessed 9/26/18.
4. May, Gerald, Addiction and Grace, New York: Harper Collins, 1988, 116.
5. Burke, Tarana, “The Inception,” Just Be Inc, http://justbeinc.wixsite.com/justbeinc/the-me-too-movement-cmml, accessed 9/25/18.
6. Killen, Patricia O;Connell, Finding Our Voices: Women, Wisdom, and Faith, New York: Crossroads, 1997, 102.
7. Harris, Maria, Teaching and Religious Imagination: Essays in the Theology of Teaching, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987, 79.
8. Harris, Maria, Dance of the Spirit: The Seven Steps of Women’s Spirituality, 1989, 187.
9. Killen 102.
10. The story of the writing and of the celebrating is chronicled by E. M. Broner in The Telling, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993.
11. Alexander, Michelle, “We Are Not the Resistance,” The New York Times, “Sunday Review,” September 23, 2018, 1-2, 2.
12. Wilhelm Part II, Chapter 37.

Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash

Copyright © 2018 Barbara E. Stevens