Remaining human in an inhuman world / A.J. Hendry
When you work for Justice, the temptation to hate, to allow outrage to consume us, is always before us. But, how do we make this work sustainable? How do we refuse to allow hate to dehumanize us?
In my last piece I spoke about outrage advocacy, and questioned whether outrage alone was enough to drive the change we want to see. Personally, I don’t believe that it is. Outrage is a human response to oppression and injustice, however remaining in that space of anger, refusing to engage with people where they are, inhibits our ability to move the conversation forward.
And yet, I get the desire to burn the world down, justice mahi is exhausting, and if I’m honest it’d be so much easier to sit in that space of outrage and anger, throwing stones at those who disagree with me, refusing to engage constructively with those who are unable to the see the world the way I see it.
When you can see the harm political ideologies are inflicting on our people, it can be exhausting to choose to engage in Love, to choose the path that leads us forward, to choose to see the inhumanity in those who hold and uphold dehumanizing ideas. I wrestle with my own exhaustion and anger constantly. With the temptation to hate, to divide, to see those who disagree with me as other, as less than human.
It would be easier to otherize, to withdraw to disconnect from the conversation, to forget that no matter how different we are, the Divine spark shines within each of us, that you and I, that each of us has immeasurable worth and value.
The systems and structures we wrestle against are immense. They are oppressive. Dehumanizing, both to those who are oppressed by them, and by those who uphold and enforce them.
And yet, I truly believe – and have born witness – to the reality that change happens when we engage with one another in love. Our outrage and anger may be enough to get us on our feet, but it is rarely enough to move the immovable object which is the human heart.
But I get it. I get the exhaustion. The anger. The frustration. The desire to burn it, everyone, the world, down. How could we be human and not feel it? When you truly see the inhumanity within our society, when you step into solidarity with our most structurally marginalized whānau, when you’ve felt the weight of oppression that bears down upon our people, outrage and anger are the only human responses available to us. We would not be human if we did not feel this. And yet, acknowledging this, I sit with the tension, that our anger alone will not be enough to bring us Justice.
For Justice can only be realized as we wrestle together, as we step into solidarity with one another, as we recognize our shared humanity, as we experience Love, and in turn, allow others to see and experience it as well. Justice will not be realized through rage, or hate, it breaks into our reality, as we find ways to heal ourselves and our world.
And so, the question I sit with is this. How do we make this mahi sustainable? How do we avoid that flame of outrage and anger from consuming us? How do we hold to Love, and see the humanity of others, in a world that is so very dehumanizing?
For me, my faith is imperative, I believe that the Divine is Love, that She exists in solidarity with the poor, that She is at work in the mahi, working towards Liberation and Justice, struggling alongside humanity, as we work together to the realization of the Divine Dream on earth as it is in Heaven. The story of liberation and justice which sits at the heart of my faith is sustaining for me, it centres me, reminding me that all human beings have value, that even though the systems and ideas which individual’s hold may be dehumanizing, people themselves are more than their worst ideas or their most inhuman actions. Every one of us has immeasurable value, every one of us contains within them the Divine Spark, every one of us is Loved. For me, when the mahi gets hard, and the temptation to give up, to hate, becomes almost to much, it is my faith that gives me a place to stand, a story to hold on to, the strength to continue.
You may not be a person of faith, and that’s ok, but I wonder, what sustains you? The point here isn’t that “religion is the answer”, but rather to express the need for each of us to have solid ground to stand on. If you are doing this mahi alone, surviving only upon the flames of anger and outrage, you will burn out. If you believe in Justice, and are committed to the work of bringing about a more just and inclusive world, than you need somewhere to place your feet. For me, it’s my faith, my whānau, my community, for you it may be something else. Whatever that something is, it’s important for you to ground yourself within it.
When you commit to the work of doing Justice in this world, it can be like choosing to exist in a world of desert and flame. To survive, you must find streams of Living Water that can sustain you and give you life.
Whatever those streams are for you, find them, stand within them, and allow them to wash over you, to heal, to hold you.
#LoveIsTheWay