Oppression ends when generations, person by person, choose to actively respond out of an overflow of love for their enemies. To have sorrow for injustices we receive, and to grieve pain caused by those injustices, without seeking healing, will produce a greater bitterness and hate. Open wounds are the propulsion of generational hate. Allowing such a brokenness to linger in the air implores our offspring to hold such a hate with no true basis. To demand an apology for pain felt, is to tie your identity and self worth to the empty road of brokenness. In short, hurting people hurt people.
Many people spend a lot of time responding to such hate with more hate. We assume that if we are strong enough to overpower someone then the pain will stop. The issue here is that it is only a matter of time before the self proclaimed hero becomes the oppressor. As I consider this, I think of the passing of racial slurs. I think of my youth when, on a daily basis, I was called cracker and little white boy. These terms were created to demean a demeanor and 150 years later they were serving their purpose. The only difference is the recipient had no intention of demeaning because he was only six years old when this started. Likewise, my brothers and sisters of other racial identities receive equal and greater oppression in even worse ways. The temptation is to respond with militant intentions. Though we may not act in physical violence, the subtle slurs of conversation allows the stench of hate and oppression to linger. Undoubtably, physical violence leaves the world in shambles, but verbal violence perpetuates hate generation to generation.
The narrative that must replace oppression is one of repentance and belief. It is the narrative given to us by Jesus, where in we are able to experience true reconciliation. To repent should be an obvious beginning of the pattern. Remove the plank. Admit the problem. Encounter the issue first hand. We are broken and we need a doctor. Then, in human relationships, believe. To assume one man is to rich to care or to assume another is to lazy to receive the blessing of needed resources, is to build a micro hiarchy on the back of self-righteousness. We must reach out to eachother, encountering our preconceived notions head on, and repenting of them. This will make room for belief. Instead of judgement, you will have made room for the journey of understanding. Mutual understanding and repentance for personal withholdings of compassion and love leads to generosity. Generosity places value on that which we once considered a threat to our right of the enjoyment of life. We here find ourselves in a place where we can no longer judge but rather, we can only bestow honor.
Many know that this road is a long one, full of disappointed, responsive violence, and daily failures. However, if there is one thing worth dying over, it is divinely inspired love. The issue at hand is that it is easier to respond in violence because, like everything else in our society, it produces an immediate retributive results. Perhaps consumerism has even intensified the violence of the present age. It is far more difficult to enact, as Mother Teresa once implored, a 'small things with great love' philosophy and theology. No oppression. No hatred. No violence. Only love. Only compassion. Only honor for God and the eternal bearers of His glory. This requires patience. It requires intensive intimate heart surgery to remove the cancers that lay dormant, waiting for their moment to break out. Intimate relationship with God is the beginning of the end of our personal role in oppression.
