Good Power

Good power is revealed in what Ken Wilber calls “growth hierarchies,” which are needed to protect children, the poor, the entire natural world, and all those without power. Bad power consists of “domination hierarchies” in which power is used merely to protect, maintain, and promote oneself and one’s group at the expense of others.

                     Richard Rohr

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“There are two loves only,” Michel Quoist believes

love of self

and love of Sacred and of others,

 

there is a love that when diverted to the self

“withers, rots and dies,”

and a love that received from Sacred

and nurtured within the self

leaves and flies toward others.

 

and which kind of love we embrace seems to

determine which kind of power we embrace.

 

Love of self produces some sour fruits

not trusting love enough we are filled with fear

and must protect, must grasp, and must dominate

 

love of self produces the “acts of the flesh” (Gal. 5)

including the very political, power sins of

rage, selfish ambition, dissension, divisiveness,

and all the elements of domination

 

Sacred is powerful

Spirit is powerful

That reality many call “God” is powerful

 

but it is a unique kind of power

and it is NOT the power of domination

 

we try to make it that kind of power

even as all that is Sacred tries to show us it is not

even as Sacred came and

incarnate, showed us on a cross that it is not.

 

but we persist

 

and we use power on others

we exercise power over others

and in the name of power, and in the name of God

we suppress, oppress, and repress

we minimize and marginalize.

 

Forgive us, Lord.

 

Help us to rejects those kinds of power that violate Sacred

Nationalism

White supremacy

Tribalism

Extremism (of any sort except extreme love)

Rigid capitalism

 

Help us to embrace that power that comes

paradoxically out of powerlessness

out of servanthood

 

that power which lifts up

welcomes

embraces

expends

sacrifices

 

that power which cedes

and protects

and seeks not to gain but to give

not to dominate but to serve

 

that power which protects

“children, the poor, the entire natural world, and all those without power”

 

power, Martin Luther King Jr. insisted

is the “ability to achieve purpose”

let us make sure that we use our power

for love