Seeing the Light in Everyone and Everything
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.1
I recall working in a village in Thailand where we were supporting sex workers to ensure they had a safe space to shower, eat, and receive educational and counseling services. To countless men there, these women were mere objects. For only a few hundred baht (the Thai currency) men can purchase access to these women’s bodies. These women are treated as the lowest creatures in society. But our job as spiritual activists is to see and help preserve their dignity and well-being. It is not our place to judge their work, as they live in poverty, but to support their basic human rights.
We’ve all heard the phrase of the lion lying down with the lamb.2 Though it is a popular cultural idiom, how many of us take the time to slow down and analyze its relevance in the work of spiritual activism? Maybe too many of us dismiss Isaiah’s vision for its childish perspective of a future redemptive state. I’ve fallen into this trap myself. But not long ago, during a particularly meaningful interfaith meeting, I heard a brilliant teaching from Reverend Dr John C. Dorhauer, of the United Church of Christ, who brought insight to this parable. For Rev. Dorhauer, a lamb cannot simply lie down with a powerful lion who merely claims to have changed its ways. That’s suicide. At any moment, the lamb knows that the lion may have a change of heart and attack. Rather, the lion must be declawed! The lion must lose muscle and give up all its natural predatory instincts! Only then can the lamb lie safely…and willingly.
So, too, those with privilege cannot merely invite those without privilege to let down their guard and join a cause. Rather, they must give up some privilege to equal the playing field by removing their unfair dominance. Re-contextualizing Isaiah’s solicitous teaching is advantageous for spiritual activists at any stage of their work: What am I willing to give up to help others live with dignity?
And, to be sure, it’s here, looking through this lens, where activists of all stripes congregate. The art of activism hinges on fidelity to human dignity; I can think of no moral commitment greater to us as activists than our commitment to the infinite dignity of every person, no matter their views or creeds. Human dignity crosses all ages, genders, sexuality, political persuasions, and ideologies—those we love, those we don’t love yet, those who are friends, and those we deem our opposition.
Those who prove themselves less worthy still have worth. No enemy deserves torture. Even a violent criminal does not deserve solitary confinement. The dint of their humanity makes them worthy of dignity, even when it is difficult to acknowledge.
We should take note of Charles Dickens’ dictum, ‘No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.’3 Today, many feel they lack value. They aren’t wealthy or famous. They don’t feel important or appreciated. What Dickens reminds us is that we should find our self-value in service. When we lift up others, we, in turn, are lifted up as well. And through removing the suffering of others, our inner dignity glows. Dignity means recognizing diversity. It means seeking the sparks within everyone. In practice, this realization means that we advocate for all vulnerable people as we never forget their endless worth, but it also means that even our biggest political opponent has dignity, and that while we will fight on the issues, we should not seek to harm other individuals with whom we disagree. We should not demonize others but rather fight for truth and justice.
Yet, in all we do as activists, we don’t merely honor the dignity of what makes us the same but also the dignity of our differences, the uniqueness of the other, even when it feels foreign to us.
Parker Palmer writes:
In the face of diversity, we feel tension—and that, in turn, can lead to discomfort, distrust, conflict, violence, and even war. So we have developed a variety of strategies to evade our differences, strategies that only deepen our fear, such as associating exclusively with ‘our own kind’ or using one of our well-tested methods to dismiss, marginalize, demonize, or eliminate the stranger…The benefits of diversity can be ours only if we hold our differences with respect, patience, openness, and hope, which means we must attend to the invisible dynamics of the heart that are part of democracy’s infrastructure.4
Our obsessions must not be with having patience in order to gain acceptance and approval from those sitting in luxurious positions of power and privilege. Our obsession must not be with waiting to calculate the perfect risk-free step but with radical commitment to healing, repairing, and dignity for all who exist now and who will exist in generations to come.
We must keep the faces of the vulnerable in our minds and our hearts to drive us to strive for the dignity of all. Seek the dignity of the lion, seek the dignity of the lamb, but never forget who needs the most support at any given moment. Frequently, whenever I hit an obstacle on my activism journey, I think of the sick baby I met in a little village in Senegal, and how she and so many others left invisible and powerless need to be the center of our spiritual consciousness. I wish I could forget the way she stared at me. But I know that it is futile. Whenever her aching glance crosses my mind, I’m reminded that the spiritual activist’s direction must always be focused toward the most powerless and never, God forbid, toward the most powerful.
When spending a summer in Ghana to help build a school, I recall meeting a man who lived in a small hut in the woods. He had no legs, so he never left this hut. Once or twice a day his brother would bring him a bowl of food, and other than that, he didn’t have social interactions. This man has infinite dignity just like every other human being. How are we protecting it? How are we to keep him, and over a billion others like him who are trapped (isolated, impoverished, disabled, etc.), in our daily consciousness?
Exercise 1: Close your eyes and imagine a divine ball of light inside of you. Focus on that light that gives meaning, purpose, energy, and infinite dignity to all of your being. See that the light can never be extinguished, manipulated, or stolen and that it is eternally central to you.
Exercise 2: When meeting another person, imagine that there is a godliness hidden within them that permeates all of their being. See that their face is not a separate entity from your own but cut from the same fabric of existence that gives dignity to all.