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Power of Meekness

As I neared the end of Sister Joan Chittister’s recent reflections on the Beatitudes, the phrase, power of meekness, jumped out at me.  Many of you know that I seldom miss a chance to share some of Chittister’s thoughts.  I do this mostly because I am confident many folks who read me never read her work.  She is a challenging, insightful observer of our country and our issues and thinks about what she sees from a deeply spiritual place.  I appreciate her challenge, even though it often leaves me a little uneasy and a bit guilty.  But that is good and appropriate.

Joan Chittister is a Benedictine nun from the Erie Benedictine community.  It is a rather large, spirited community of women who are committed and engaged in various ministries.  I have been there and even spoke to the community.  I am not sure I was qualified to do it, but I was privileged to be part of them for a day or so.  They join other folks, like fellow monk, Thomas Merton and many others---monks, nuns and ordinary people---who are trying to live a life of the Spirit in our crazy world.  We need each other’s support on our journeys.

In her piece Chittister is reflecting on the well-known Beatitude, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”  I am confident many contemporary people are not sure what the word, meek, means or they think being meek is the last thing they aspire to be.  They think meek means weak, cowardly or inept.  Who in their right mind would choose this!  However, we are better off knowing the original meaning of the word, meek.  It points us more in the direction of strength---quiet strength.  To be meek means we are willing to submit to the will or cause of a higher calling or of God.  Typically, it is the opposite of force---force understood as brute power.  I would point to the original Greek behind our English word, meek.  It means something like “strength under control.”  Being meek is not being wimpy.

The Beatitudes are the one-liners Jesus tells his disciples they are to imitate.  They characterize the manner in which Jesus operated in this world.  It is easy to say, “Yes, and see where it got him!”  Correct, but he was clear about his cause.  Are we as clear about our calling and our cause?  It is easy to live a long, pointless life.  That is no accomplishment---and certainly not memorable.  I would like to choose to live meekly---and be blessed.

I appreciated Chittister’s opening two lines.  “I discovered over the years that one of the major soul-searing questions to be dealt with in spiritual development is the friction between tradition and traditionalism.  I spent years trying to figure out which was which and why there was a problem.”  In her usual ornery fashion, Chittister then says a Sufi story helped her figure it out.  

The story tells about the old Sufi who was on his way to the mosque to pray.  He fell asleep within eyesight of the holy place.  At a later point, he was rudely awakened by someone who was berating him for being a lousy Sufi.  He had not made it to the mosque, his head was pointed to the west “and your feet pointed toward God in the holy shrine.”  Now comes the punch line.  “The old Sufi stirred a bit and opened one eye.  ‘I thank you, sir, for your concern,’ he said. Then, a grin playing at the corner of his mouth, he went on, ‘so would you be so kind as to turn my feet in some direction where they are not pointing at God.’”  Of course, most of us think that God is everywhere.  The Sufi knows that this is tradition’s answer.  Traditionalism gets hung up on things done a particular way that may have little to do with deeper truths.

Chittister’s teaching is clear.  Jesus leaves us teachings that still have life and punch.  But too often we who believe these things have turned them into traditionalism.  Probably Jews, Hindus and all the rest do the same thing.  We turn the call to meekness into settling for being nice.  Being spiritual does not mean being nice.  It doesn’t suggest being mean either!  Being spiritual means being obedient, loving all others and serving them in all the ways we can.  It is a challenge and it is provocative.  

Chittister tells us she does not think force is working very well in our world.  I agree.  Instead, she insists, “Clearly the Beatitudes are all we have left to make humanity humane.”  Maybe this is the special ministry of the spiritual ones.  I appreciate her citation of the words of Hindu Swami Sivananda, who offers that “Humility is not cowardice.  Meekness is not weakness.  Humility and meekness are indeed spiritual powers.”  Go figure; meekness is powerful.  That is exactly what Jesus was trying to teach us.

We are duped by a world that still thinks it is bullets and bombs that guarantees security and enables us to get our way.  If you think this is not true, ponder the increasing gun violence and how we address this by selling more guns to protect ourselves from gun violence.  Of course, I don’t want to get shot and certainly don’t want to die violently this way.  I suspect Jesus didn’t want to go that way either.  Dare I believe there is power in meekness?

It surely is a matter of faith!


https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/blessed-are-meek-saving-tradition

  




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