Calling Forth the Best in Us All

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

We are living in a historic moment. Here in Wenatchee — and in many communities across the country — students recently walked out of school to protest the actions of ICE. Their courage moved me. Their moral seriousness stirred my admiration.

And I worried.

Not because their cause did not matter, but because whenever we step into charged situations, we must be prepared for what we might encounter. Anger. Counter-anger. Escalation.

History is shaped in public squares, yes. But it is also shaped in kitchens, classrooms, and living rooms. The same forces that animate protests show up in sibling rivalries and neighborhood disagreements.

Violence rarely begins with a weapon. It begins with a narrowing. A narrowing of options, a shrinking of imagination. The moment I forget that the person in front of me has a mother, a story, a conscience — something in me has already hardened.

For Christians readers, many scholars say that when Jesus taught, “Turn the other cheek,” he was not calling people to be doormats. In first-century Palestine, a backhanded slap was an act of humiliation. Turning the other cheek forced the aggressor into an uncomfortable decision: strike as an equal or stop. Giving one’s cloak publicly exposed injustice. Walking a second mile disrupted domination.

It was not surrender. It was what some call a "third way" — neither flight nor retaliation, but creative resistance that preserved dignity and gently prodded conscience.

Catholic retreat leaders like the Linn family have told stories of such creative responses. A man confronted by a robber calmly offered him his coat. The script shattered; the robbery dissolved. An elderly woman whose purse was being snatched looked the young thief in the eye and asked, “Honey, what would your grandmother think of you right now?” He paused. “She’d be ashamed of me,” he said — and handed it back.

In both cases, the goal was not to totally humiliate. It was to call forth the best self. There may have been a flicker of embarrassment, but the deeper power at work was love — love grounded in the recognition of shared humanity.

Shame says, “You are bad.” Love says, “You are better than this.”

Not long ago, I faced a much smaller but very real conflict between two grandchildren. Voices rose. I instantly leapt to defend the one I perceived as the injured party. I did not pause. I did not ask what had happened. I reacted.

It was not my best moment.

But then my grandson’s face crumpled. Through tears he said, “Nainai (a term designated for the mother of the father in mandarin) I don’t always tell the truth. I try to. But sometimes I don’t want to admit I did something bad. It’s embarrassing.” And then, with surprising tenderness, he added about his sister, “She’s acting like that because she’s embarrassed.”

In that moment, conscience awakened — not because I had cornered him, but because something softened in the room. Beneath defensiveness was vulnerability. Beneath the conflict was a child who wanted to be good.

We are all like that.

Creative nonviolence works because it assumes something radical: that even people doing harmful things have a conscience that can be nudged awake. It rests on the power of love and on the understanding that our common humanity runs deeper than our worst impulses.

When we respond to aggression with the intent to utterly humiliate, we shrink the other person to their lowest behavior. When we respond with steady dignity, we widen the frame. We say, without saying, “I see more in you than this moment.”

As allies, this matters deeply. When someone else is being hurt, our first task is to regulate ourselves. A calm nervous system can lower the temperature of an entire room. Research on de-escalation confirms what wisdom has long known: steadiness is contagious.

Next, we stand beside the vulnerable. Sometimes that simply means stepping closer and asking, “Is everything okay here?” Solidarity interrupts isolation.

And then — when safe and appropriate — we appeal to conscience rather than attack identity. “Let’s pause.” “Is this how we want to handle this?” The tone is everything. The goal is not to expose someone as wrong, but to invite them upward.

This is the third way at work. It does not ignore injustice. It does not stay silent in the face of cruelty. But it refuses to mirror the very thing it resists. It keeps moral ground.

Yes, there may be moments when embarrassment surfaces. But embarrassment is not the goal. The goal is to awaken the conscience and the better angels of our nature.

Students on a lawn in Wenatchee. A purse on a sidewalk. Two grandchildren in a squabble. The scale changes; the principle does not.

Violence narrows imagination. It reduces people to enemies, liars, criminals, problems.

Love widens imagination. It says, You are more than this moment. So am I.

We all have the capacity to harm. But we also have the capacity to remember who we are — members of one human family, capable of truth, dignity, and change.

The power that interrupts violence is not cleverness. It is not superiority. It is love grounded in the recognition of our shared humanity. It’s really our only way forward. 

And when that love steadies us — when it helps us breathe before reacting, stand beside the vulnerable, and speak in ways that call forth what is highest — something shifts. A room softens. A child tells the truth. A thief hands back a purse. A protest remains peaceful.

In fact, this may sound silly, but I think simply using our phones to record what is happening may help people think about what they are doing. Sure, they may just be manipulating the optics in front of the camera, and if done with contempt it may not work well, but capturing the moment may nudge people's conscience. At least it may cut down on bad actions.

A video was linked of Greg Bovino, the former Minneapolis ICE honcho, who was in L.A. before Minneapolis. He’s giving direction to his troops:

This is our fucking city! ... Arrest as many people who touch you as you want. Those are the general orders, all the way to the very top! It’s all about us now. It ain’t about them.

Then this later:

“Professional, legal, ethical, moral. We’re on camera.”

I once read some research about how little cues can awaken our conscience.  For example, people were asked (with a little card above the coffee maker) to leave a donation for the coffee fund if they drank coffee. Lots of people drank coffee without donating.  But where a pair of eyes were drawn on a card above the coffee maker, donations went way up.   

I think singing hymns can help nudge people’s conscience...including our own. Even songs from the civil rights era have been in my head lately. John and I sing, “Let There Be Peace on Earth” – the catch in the song is that it says next, “and let it begin with me” every other day after yoga.  It helps us find and set our positive intention and steadies us.

Even a little gentle accountability conversation can be a nudge to our conscience. Recently, I noticed that the kids were just leaving a mess in the gym where they play.  I told them, “John and I will clean this up, but after a while we will probably get resentful because we didn’t make the mess.”  The next Sunday everything was picked up.  I’m not naïve enough to think they will never leave a mess again, but I see there’s hope.

To sum it up, when we respond to violence with violence (physical or psychological) – it’s a lack of imagination.  It just stirs up continued violence. Consider creative ways or tempered ways of calling people into their humanity. If Jesus did it over 2,000 years ago and made a big dent in people’s way of being even when under the rule of legions of Roman soldiers, it can be done now.  

Let’s help each other be grounded in a powerfully loving, steady, creative stance and figure out ways to cue the better angels of our nature. It's not easy I know. I get triggered and stumped and mess up all the time, but we can help each other stay on the journey.

How might we journey together to The Good Life by looking for loving, creative ways to practice the 3^rd way – and use gentle nudges to our collective human consciences, the better angels of our nature?

Here's a Daily Good article, I found quite good and along the same vein. Just click on this