Your enemy is God's gift to you

There is a possibility, however slim, that our arguments can lead us to miraculous change.

Part 9 of our series with David Benjamin Blower: Notes on Poverty, Death and Nothingness, exploring the writings of St Paul of the Cross

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“If anyone hurts you, look on him as someone of great value and, with the eyes of one who loves, see him as the person chosen by God to clothe you in holiness and in the patience, silence and meekness of Jesus Christ.”

I think this is one of the most charming and immediately disarming sensibilities I have found in the writings of St Paul of the Cross: his posture toward enemies. 

He says so little about enemies, generally speaking, and this in itself is refreshing. In my world, half the endless scroll of social media is mostly concerned with its enemies. It's the subject that keeps on giving. There’s no fear of running out of things to say, and little chance of really addressing anything either. There's a lot of tribal mapping and a lot of blowing off steam. Half the memes on the internet are pithy one-shot lectures on why the other side are stupid. So, naturally, St. Paul's disinterest is a relief from the noise. 

On the other hand, I find myself suspecting him of quietism, as ever. How can you not be talking about what's really going on? Is it because the cost of naming the enemy is too high?

On the occasions when St Paul does speak of enemies, there are no tribal borders being put down. He gives no clues as to whose side he is on (except when speaking of wealth hoarders). Usually he's not interested in the argument; he's more interested in what we are doing when we are having arguments. What’s at stake? What are the possibilities? 

In the ordinary view, we might win the argument, or we might lose it. Actually, anything so clean cut is unusual. What’s left over is an ambiguous disquiet, a grudge or some wearying dissonance. 

Here’s another view: our beef with each other is an apocalyptic realm where miracles might happen—not for fanciful reasons, but for very practical ones. Some ignorance might be brought to awareness, some alienation might be embraced, some boundaried experience might be opened up to someone else's world, some buried pain might finally sing its song, some restless disquiet might be resolved. Perhaps the real treasure at stake is not what’s being fought over, but the relationship within which the fight occurs. Even what’s being fought over is more likely to find good resolution in the context of a healed relationship. Your enemy is the bringer of possibilities that neither of you know about. This works both ways.

Is this idealistic? Certainly. The good outcomes are perhaps the more rare. But they are always a possibility, however slim. And that possibility rarely comes about by accident. Intentionality is everything, and viewing your opponent as the bringer of possibility is one way of holding it.

I don’t want to hear this when the argument sinks to grinding hatred, when dreadful things are happening. No one wants to hear this when the matter is playing out in violence. In the end, I either wish to rid the world of my enemies, or I opt for some miracle beyond my imagination, in which I share the world with them in a healed relationship of some sort. It's hard to reach for the first kind of justice without becoming the image of what you are trying to destroy.