Honest, loving dialog is the starting point for healing, but love & honesty expressed as Universal Grace is a rare advent in our daily existence.
Love covers a multitude of sins and few people (if any) hurt others out of an 'instinct' for evil. I often want to protect myself from others who are judgmental toward me, but truly how I react to life is the source of my fear, justified anger, or 'whatever' that makes me want to view myself as 'better than or less than "THEM" or "those people".
People who desire to see the good in others struggle with believing that 'the LOVE of money is the root of ALL evil'. Studying history, I see money and power connected to oppression masked as something necessary or even beautiful in every discipline imaginable, religious or secular. There seems to be a breaking point for everyone engaged in systems of protection.
Maybe death to self (ishness) is key, but the rich man walked away quite crestfallen when Christ asked that he donate everything to the poor and follow Him. Oddly enough, most of us have our own peculiar attachments to deal with, whether it’s people, places or things.
Maybe it's human nature itself that is protective, like a mother with a child who puts her own power before trusting God to protect her children in the way that is best. The good is the enemy of the best. Spiritual Instinct always intuitively knows what to do when faced with trauma or the potential thereof.
Yes, maybe we are sometimes all that stands between the evil and the innocent. Left to our selfish devices or protective interests, we are at risk of forgetting there is One who has all Power.
Falling prey to such temptation is familiar to me. I sent someone to the hospital who threatened to kill me. As I lay in a cell waiting for charges to be filed against me, I remembered the scripture about the person who attempts to save his own life losing it and he who surrenders his life will save it. I knew I could never usurp God's protection of Timothy ever again, at least like I did that day. Yes, I was found Not Guilty for reasons of 'self-defense', but the self is all about...me.
Admittedly, I will today hope to step up and stand between the bully and the bullied, but I will not (hopefully) attack the bully and become the thing I seek to remedy.
I have studied many books in my life and the textbook known as The Big Book in recovery circle is just one of them. WE recovered from a seemingly incurable condition, whether it be a people addiction or a substance addiction. In this Big Book, it stated that we “quit fighting” everything and everybody, including alcoholism. RECOVERED is an interesting phrase. To me, it means we returned to our Original Self (not ‘self’ or the absence thereof). Focusing on God Esteem balanced with our pre-fallen condition of Self Esteem, we recover what we were before all the shit that happened to us.
When my heart was ‘broken’ with the powerful stroke of an angel’s impact during The Dark Night of the Soul, the white light within my heart shone out above the brightness of the sun. However, I saw that the OUTSIDE of my heart was black as coal/ A soot covered my heart, but never did the fire and soot change who I was originally. I learned in that dreadfully painful moment that nothing could screw up who I was, who I am. Not even I could screw that up.
Maybe no one can harm that part of who we are, not even the rapist or abuser can touch that part of our TRUE nature.