This week I discussed a Christian campaign letter with colleagues, initially titled a “Statement of Discontent,” now softened to a “Statement of Concern.” I joked it might eventually be a “Statement of Slight Unease.”
It is difficult to maintain discontent. It requires energy, and I often find myself tiring faster than injustice does. It’s much easier to cope with just a slight unease…
Earlier this year I went to see ‘Zone of Interest’. It’s a disquieting, mesmerising, highly-acclaimed film that exclusively follows the household life of the family of the Officer-in-Charge at Auschwitz. Their home borders the camp. A servant of the house dispassionately washes boots at the outside tap, the water runs red. One of the little boys lies awake in bed, moving his hands in time with the noises he hears from the gas chambers. The mother tries on a lipstick from the pocket of a confiscated fur coat. They discuss the garden, the chores, their aspirations.
Watching it I felt such a strong response of indignation that I felt physically nauseous. As a kid I distinctly remember thinking “how could people alive during the time of the Holocaust not have done anything?”. As an adult I regularly watch my outrage turn to discontent, fade to concern, fade to unease, and eventually fade to nothing.
One of the difficult things about maintaining discontent, is the endless supply of nuance. Nuance means there are not just two sides to every coin but three. Nuance means that there’s a ready reason available to justify waiting just a bit longer to act. Nuance means it’s safer to practice some agnosticism about what is right and what is wrong.
There’s strength in knowing what it is you stand in opposition to as well as what you’re for.
The upper end of the magnetic needle in a compass consistently seeks the North Pole just as surely as it is repelled from the South Pole. To be for something strongly is to defend it from all that would threaten or destroy it.
(Maybe for another time, but this connects with an understanding the judgement of God. In loving the heavens and the earth, God is vehemently opposed to that which threatens destruction. We think of judgement in terms of morality, but in Christian terms judgement is better expressed in terms of cosmology – as God bringing about ‘putting things to rights’).
Something that I’ve noticed in myself is a reluctance to fully step into opposing what I think is wrong because I don’t like the exposure of putting myself into conflict with the status quo. I am quick to acquiesce or to think it’s possible that I haven’t considered all the complexities. I don’t want the retaliation. I don’t want to come across as disagreeable or unpleasant. I want to be liked.
Gonville ffrench-Beytagh, an Anglican priest imprisoned as part of the anti-apartheid movement said, “If you love something or someone very much, you must hate that which destroys the beloved… (I think that Christians are far too apt to try and escape from the need to truly hate evil, so that their love is also wishy-washy and weak)”. In other words, to love with feeling is to find yourself resisting with feeling too.
As Christians, we’re guilty of interpreting ‘love your enemies’ as ‘we should have no enemies’. The Rev Ken Leech, who set up the charity Centrepoint, said “Evil forces are to be cast out, not reconciled. Reconciliation is the result of the struggle, and is brought about only through conflict and eventually through death itself”. (Ken not really mincing his words there!) If we can’t identify our enemies, it might be that we’ve mistaken love for mere goodwill and tolerance.
We all have moments of feeling discontent. My friend Jacquie described being at a human rights conference this week with catering so lavish as to be grotesque. She recalled her discomfort at walking past one of the waiting staff pouring Aperol Spritz cocktails down the drain. Often these moments are fleeting – we are disturbed, but we take our feelings off the boil.
Can we get beyond the feet-shuffling of unease? I want us to feed our discontent such that we are driven to organise the resistance.
What is it that makes your blood boil? And at what temperature?
thejoyofrachel 