True human power
Remember us on 9/11? Oh, my God, the emotions we felt! But there was something greater than emotion, wasn’t there?. There was something that fueled our springing into action. There was something that reached out and connected us to one another, something we didn’t dare argue with or resist. There was something that pulled us out of ourselves. It clarified our vision. It laid bare these truths: we all matter; we are all connected; we all depend upon one another. What I believe each of us — those of us watching those horrible events — experienced in those moments was power, true power.
True human power is a force like none other. We often confuse it with coercion or intimidation. We try to make it easier to yield. And we often do not like what it is fueled and maintained by: truth and vulnerability.
Look at Jesus. He spoke truth, and He made himself vulnerable in doing so. No one exercised more power than He. After all, His grave was empty, and His way remains.
Those who choose to walk in His footsteps experience this power on a daily basis. They confront the lies others contort themselves to live with. They make themselves vulnerable by giving, by sacrificing, by sharing, by urging others to do the same.
There are thousands of 9/11’s going on all around us. The actual 9/11 was so big, it provided the booster chair, so to speak, enabling us to sit at true power’s table and get a good look at it. The smaller 9/11’s don’t have that booster chair. We have to decide whether or not we’ll do the work to climb up there by honoring truth and risking vulnerability. Or, we can keep sitting at the kids’ tables where power is this thing we exercise with guns, with lies, and with profound disconnection.
True power. Truth. Vulnerability. There’s really no other way.
Reflection
What is your experience of true human power?
Prayer
Dear God, I want and need to stand up. There is so much suffering and sorrow, I can easily just collapse beneath the weight of it all. But we are equipped to rise. Help me to see, know, and live the truth. Give me the courage to choose to be vulnerable. May I exercise true human power. Amen.