What are the commitments that have the capacity to enable gentleness?
1. I renounce the illusion of control and embrace the confusing uncertainty and unpredictability of life even though I feel vulnerable and frightened.
2. I choose to live in light of the reality that I am not in control of the world, or of the circumstances of my life or of any other person’s life, and I choose to be okay with that.
3. I affirm that my deepest longing is not for safety and security but for freedom.
4. I will not give away power in my life to any external force, circumstance, or person.
5. I acknowledge that feelings are ultimately chosen and I accept responsibility for the feelings I choose.u
6. In the face of discomfort and fear, I will risk being exposed rather than fleeing to the safety of the fortress that offers an illusion of security.
7. I choose to abandon the fortresses I build around my life.
8. Recognizing that I will at times find myself seeking the security of a locked room, I determine, when I awaken in a prison of my own making, to seek the open space that is always available just beyond the bars I have built.
9. I accept that I am often frightened, but refuse to allow my fears to define me. I am not my fears, my perceived inadequacies, my doubts, or uncertainties.
10. When I feel small and vulnerable, I will not judge myself, but neither will I believe that the illusion of my frailty is the ultimate truth about my reality.
11. I renounce the toughness the world seems to value.
12. I choose to listen to the message of my irritability and harshness telling me that I am feeling threatened and insecure. But I refuse to give them space or time in my life.
13. Whenever I become aware of the possibility, I will choose to move to openness and softness rather than resistance and harshness.
14. I commit to acknowledging the violence to which I so easily resort when I feel threatened and choose instead to open to tenderness even in the midst of terror.
15. I will stop and breathe before responding from that place of resistance that is so often my default position when I feel threatened or uncomfortable.
16. I will not hide. Hiding only reinforces the insecurity that believes I am at risk. When I hide, I strengthen the illusion of my vulnerability.
17. I will not silence the voice of truth that I instinctively recognize within myself.
18. I reject the lie that gentleness is weakness and affirm that gentleness is a close relative of truth and is willing to speak truth firmly and confidently.
19. I embrace the tenderness that feels like frailty but that I affirm in fact touches the centre of my true nature as a person created in the image of God.
20. I affirm that gentleness is always an expression of my true nature and that the choice to be gentle connects me more deeply with the reality at the heart of all life.
21. While acknowledging that life is always precarious and uncertain and that I am always vulnerable, I affirm that there is a core to my being that can never be destroyed. This is the truth of resurrection and the source of gentleness.
22. I commit myself to those practices that keep me conscious of the deep well-spring of being that sustains all existence. I choose to rest and trust in this reality over all the contrary evidence the world may propose and my senses may be tempted at times to believe.
In A Spacious Place 
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July 21, 2012 at 7:42 am
jaqueline
“I affirm that my deepest longing is not for safety and security but for freedom.”
I am not sure about this…especially considering the many , many references that scripture has , describing God as our refuge and place of safety.
Is it either/ or?
Resilience in children is developed by allowing them the right balance of safety and freedom (risk)…too much of one or the other compromises their ability to develop resilience.
These characteristics that are described as gentleness….lack of control…safety…are they not possible because we know deep down that God is in control and is our safety?
July 21, 2012 at 10:55 am
kimgye
“14. I commit to acknowledging the violence to which I so easily resort when I feel threatened and choose instead to open to tenderness even in the midst of terror.”
For me terror is a little too strong a description, but here is how this commitment showed up in my life last night:
While playing soccer in an old guys summer league last night I turned my ankle while at full gallop and tore some ligaments in my ankle. This injury has occurred before in my 30 something year history in this sport. Unlike a sprain, the swelling around the ankle is immediate and pretty severe. The right action is a LOT of ice on it immediately to slow the internal bleeding.
This didn’t happen for a number of reasons and I ended up sitting in a chair in the clubhouse alone waiting for Alison (who I had called) to arrive with much needed ice. The response from me to the cold pack and frozen peas was that it was the wrong remedy. Immediate impatience and ungratefulness punctuated my words. She got a full blast of this for just trying to help me! It took me a while to see the origin of the violence in my words. First there was the fear and knowledge when the injury occurred of how my work would be affected. 2/ The awareness and acute disappointment that sports was gone for the summer for me. 3/ Next was the desperateness of finding ice and or first aid asap and there being none available at an event with two games tasking place simultaneously each Friday. 4/ While waiting for Alison to arrive I burned through what little ice I could find and knew how much of a setback this would become down the road.
Anger and resentment completely enshrouded my being and when the poor girl arrived, I probably would not have needed to say a word for her to receive all of that. In the end, I got my just reward and had to find my own ice and way home until I had come to my senses. The good news is I did realize the authorship of the entire evening fairly quickly and am blessed with a very forgiving and understanding partner. Understanding in that she also sees the truth in this manifesto Christopher. I think there was a number of other commitments you list that fit my being last night. Thanks for the timely post once again. 🙂
July 21, 2012 at 3:41 pm
jaqueline
How is it that you; being injured, in need of help, in pain, and not getting it , and then lashing out not OK…
but inadequate first aid at a sporting event excusable? There was a lot to take in all at once and in pain and in helplessness.
I do understand how it must have felt to get the brunt of your frustration.. Yes it was not fair that you lashed out…not very gentle of you at all…but are we to expect the best response from someone who is injured? Are we to expect perspective and grace?
If you were uninjured and not in pain and being well cared for and still lashed out..then I would expect that to be well and truly disapproved of.
…..but I am left with questions pertaining to this whole discussion of gentleness and passivity etc. Under these circumstances.was walking away gentle? Or was it the equal and opposite reaction of what you had just delivered…Just because it was not a ‘forward’ action, does that make it more acceptable?
You and your partner, know yourselves, but for me this incident raises some very interesting questions.
July 22, 2012 at 1:02 am
jaqueline
gosh I wrote that in a hurry….but I have been thinking about it all night….Of course what I intended with .the comment are the questions about how we interpret gentleness…I am not actually intending to question you and your partner’s decision..(.that is what I meant by, the two of you know yourselves)…..it is the questions that your experience raises for me…..like…does harshness always look like aggression….?
And what about those whose violence was due to pain…how do we understand them or try to be gentle and healing in our actions but yet not allow the abuse of it?Walking away when someone attacks you undeservedly is important, especially if it not life and death..but then how does that demonstrate gentleness or patience to the person who is in pain and angry? Should we stay if it is not life and death for us?
But then I think: can gentleness be inappropriate sometimes?…does it need to be part of a larger vocabulary? When do we need patience more that gentleness for instance, or are they part of the same thing? Lots and lots of questions…
A great example you have given us…it is not as cut an dried as we would want life to be sometimes.
July 22, 2012 at 11:59 am
kimgye
I think I understand your questions Jaqueline. Maybe all there is for me to know is that I like to think that I can strive to choose to be more “mindful” or “present” if you want, rather than once again be a slave to my old reactions. These old defensive reactions have not proven over time to serve me particularly well. I like the way choosing to be less guarded has worked for me in the few times I have been able to catch myself. I have plenty of understanding regarding the origin and function of my defended state. It is a case of integrating that piece of me.
There is a lot of possibility in much of the manifesto above. It is not an either/or choice and there is no “bad guy” for me. Just a new way to contemplate. Funny, but its almost as if that very moment that I pause before reacting has so much potential to change my life. Not sure I describe it well, just that it is a second or two where I can be free to choose again. The story was only to describe what can spill over from falling back into reaction. I celebrate all of who I am when I learn from it. It has taken a lifetime of being whoever I am to get me to this point and I can be grateful for all of it. I am excited about the freedom that can be there should I choose it and I see some of that in Christopher’s Manifesto. Thanks for the insightful questions.
July 25, 2015 at 5:50 am
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