A Ramble About Power

One of the last events I vividly remember from working at the children's home was getting my nose broken. One might think, "of course you would remember that!" But the truth is I was bitten, punched, and otherwise inflicted with minor injuries on a regular basis. Getting my nose broken would have otherwise just been amalgamated in with the rest of it.

I remember this particular incident distinctly because of what it taught me. I had been forced to put a teenage girl who had become violent into a restraint. It started with a right hook to my head, which initiated the restraint. As I backed her into the "safe room" as she was kicking and screaming and flailing her head back and forth. As I was trying to get her into a settled position she threw her head back violently smack into my nose and I heard a crunch. Blood started flowing from both nostrils and pain shot through my nose and face. I couldn't release her and let her go in the state she was in.

I don't remember if I had consciously prayed or not. There have been many times when the Lord has acted before I've had the chance to consciously pray. But I remember focusing hard on loving this girl, even as blood was streaming down my face and dripping on to my black hoodie (the one I'm wearing now as I write this, as a matter of fact). And my tone of voice became soothing and comforting to her, to calm her down and reassure her. I loved that girl that day. Loving her in that moment was all that mattered even as I didn't know what shape my face was in. Loving her and protecting her especially from herself was what flowed through my thoughts, out through my words, and into my arms as I held her in a restraint that became an embrace of a troubled girl that was young enough to be my daughter, and was one of the several girls there that I thought of as such.

There is a perverse yet pervasive misconception about strength and weakness, and about power and impotence in this world. Many people, whether they admit it or not, assume that love, mercy, kindness, and compassion are all weaknesses. That in order to survive you must learn to dominate, control, and master other people. Those who aren't strong enough to do this are crushed beneath the boots of those who are. Everywhere this image is reinforced even if it isn't named. The villain in the Harry Potter series put it succinctly, "there is only power, and those strong enough to wield it."

I knew girls in that home who had been forced to live by that creed, and it tore them apart from the inside out. There was another girl, even more unstable and violent than the one who broke my nose. She had grown up mostly on the streets as a runaway after having been molested by a family member and called a liar for reporting it. She was physically strong, agile, and domineering. The first time it looked like she would have to be restrained, we called in another male member of the staff and even then we didn't know how the two of us would fair if we had to force her to the safe room. So we stood there, with another female staff member trying to talk her down. The girl was primed and ready for a fight, and we knew it just from the look in her eyes and the fighting stance she assumed. She was angry and upset. So, we just stood there to keep her from doing any damage, not knowing when or if we should act and put our hands on her. She kept looking at us, taunting us to engage her in a fight, her eyes eventually filled with tears of frustration as she encountered a situation she didn't know how to handle. Physical strength and domination she understood, but she had no real defenses against compassion, understanding, and patience. She eventually gave up and walked to the safe room on her own.

Fear, physical strength, domination, anger, hatred; all of these have a power of their own, and it feels impressive and dangerous, and intimidating. But I learned in that children's home that none of these can truly withstand the inescapable power of love and compassion. It is the power of the love and compassion of God flowing through a person that allows that person to stand silently while people insult and spit on him. It is the power of His love and compassion flowing through a person that allow him to do nothing harmful or evil in return when someone injures or threatens him. It is the power of His love and compassion which flows through a person which allows a person to overcome all hatred, insults, threats and bodily and emotional harm directed at them and return only peace, kindness, and mercy to their tormentor.

True power lies in submission to the One within whom the only true power resides, and not in trying to free oneself from Him or anyone else. True power lies in admitting our weakness and allowing His power to flow through us. All of this is true because true and genuine power flows only from Him.

As I finish this out, I am reminded of the paradox in the final words of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope. He said, "You can't win Darth. If you should strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could even imagine." He knew that in that moment of his physical death, he would truly and finally become one with the Force, and then there was no way he could be overcome.

The same was true of the martyrs. They knew that if they should be struck down by those who hated them, in their final moment of physical weakness they would become more powerful than their enemies could understand or imagine. Because in that final moment of shedding their dying bodies, they would achieve final union with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this reason they sang praise and thanks to Him as they died, to the total bewilderment of the crowds who watched it. This is true power.