The following post comes from Ryan Clark, CBF specialist and training manager for self-funded field personnel. Read part 1 of this blog series here and part 2 here.

“Is that shooting going on at your wife’s school?” Was the facebook chat I received just as I left a meeting. It wasn’t, but not knowing that at the time, I scrambled to my computer to figure out what my friend was talking about.

Someone was shooting at a school a few miles from the school where my wife teaches. And neither was it my daughter’s elementary school which is a few more miles away from Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy.

You’ve seen it already on several news outlets, the heroism of Antoinette Tuff as she talked Michael Brandon Hill into making a good decision. How she kept herself composed long enough to allow law enforcement to arrest Mr. Hill.

You heard how she told him that she loved him. She said she understood and gave testimony to how she’d overcome some difficult times in her life. As they police rushed in, she instructed them about the fact that he was no longer armed. She treated him like a guy named Michael who was really struggling with mental illness and needed someone just like Antoinette to help him.

While at Wildgoose, I went to a break-out titled, “The Power of Gospel Nonviolence to Change Our Lives and Our world,” facilitated by Pace e Bene, an independent non-profit organization whose mission is “to foster justice, peace and sustainability through education, community and action rooted in the spirituality of nonviolence.”  

We looked at Scripture and role-played techniques for practicing nonviolence in a situation where a neighborhood was upset because a church was converting its family life center into support ministry for the homeless. It was pretty great.

So here is my confession: I didn’t sign the Pace e Bene non-violent pledge at the end of the break-out. The reason is… well… while I think the Biblical hermeneutic is right on and I think Gandhi and King’s commitment to the practice of non-violence worked and should be our model, deep down I still have morbid, violent fantasies of stopping a criminal by smacking him in the face with a Springfield 9mm handgun (of which I had a replica bb-gun  growing up) and lecturing him like Jules Winnfield in the film Pulp Fiction might do.

I couldn’t sign that non-violent commitment because even though I’ve received very good training in how to listen and talk to people in crisis, I daydream about solving problems like officer John McClain and detective Martin Riggs.

My brain says, “Make a connection with the person using genuine empathy and curiosity and invite reciprocal story telling.” But my heart says, “Smack that fool down now before he hurts anyone.”

I hear Jesus’ words, “Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: ‘Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, gift wrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.” (The Message)

Ugh.  As I write this, our government is deciding how to use violence against Syria as a punishment for using horrifying violence against its own citizens. A part of me really wants to level Syria’s military command with strategic missile strike, because it’s hard for me to imaging the United States standing by and doing nothing.

But there’s also another part of me.

In a rallying cry on Wednesday, Congressman John Lewis reminded us, “You cannot stand by. You’ve got to stand up. Speak up. Speak out and get in the way. Make some noise.”  A reminder than non-violence is not passive.

Gandhi warned, “Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.”

All of these experiences are swirling around as I try to figure out what the last two weeks have meant to me. I think, for now, this is what I’ve decided:

1.  While Jesus has converted most of me, he’s having difficulty with parts of me that were programmed by violent media. And I’m not doing enough to help him.
2. I struggle with a sense of powerlessness which is no doubt where my violent fantasies come from.
3. If I were more engaged in setting right injustices in my community, I’d probably find it easier to tell someone like Michael,  “I love you.”