Momming Mondays and Quiet Power

Do you know what ended the Cold War arms race? Here's the Cliff's Notes version- For years one side would build something bigger and better, so the other side would also build something bigger and better. We'd get scared, things would escalate, and so it went on. Eventually between us we had collected more nuclear weapons than we could possibly use. Someone finally said, "Let's stop." And everyone sighed in relief.

 In the journal article, "The Nuclear Arms Race: Prisoner's Dilemma or Perceptual Dilemma", S. Plous of Wesleyan University describes this phenomenon as a "perceptual dilemma." In a perceptual dilemma, " both sides 1) prefer mutual arms reductions to all other outcomes. 2) above all want to avoid disarming while the other side arms 3) perceive the other side is preferring unilateral armament to all other outcomes."

There's other examples of these types of dilemmas. If you're familiar with Hamilton think of Burr's inner conflict in the scene preceding the dual. How might things have changed if he'd had the courage to also aim high and throw away that shot?

I believe that the worldly obsession with being perceived as powerful further aggravates this. We rush into a heated situation, sometimes knowing full-well we're escalating things because we care more about the principle than the outcome. We have to have the last word at any cost. I believe this happens on a global level, a national level and local level. Those who bark loudly must be the winners, even if they sacrifice their own cause in the process. What drives this? Fear.

I believe we do this as parents sometimes. My worst parenting moments happen when I feel embarrassed for appearing to be weak. I might know that best practices require I deal with a situation quietly and in private, but I can't let those third cousins at the family reunion or those strangers in the grocery store check-out line think I'd let my kid get away with behaving like that, right? So I'll sacrifice the better outcome in order to appear powerful in the moment. I forget that true power doesn't look like yelling at or shaming my children. It looks like raising children who continue to have their own moral compass long after I'm gone.

The world paints a picture of what power looks, and sounds like. Jesus offers an upside down and backwards view of authority. Fully God and fully man, Jesus who had "all authority in heaven and on earth" knelt to wash his twelve disciples' feet before his last meal. He had armies of angels at his disposal, yet ordered Peter put away his sword. He said crazy things about "the last shall be first and the first shall be last." When it was demanded that he be tough on law-breakers, he sat writing in the sand instead of throwing stones. He told his followers they should be more like children. Or sheep. 

I also think of Mother Teresa. At 5 feet tall, with a sweet smile, and a captive audience, she knew how to put people of power back in their place. She refused a new car from the Pope, slept on floors and expected her followers to do the same. Everyone wanted to believe she was on their side, but she was just concerned with being on God's side. Some would invite her to come and speak and she'd cause them to shift in their seats uncomfortably as she spoke about choosing poverty, while others would sweat it out as she boldly talked about the sanctity of human life. She showed love and compassion for all people but she was no respecter of man. She only answered to God. Near the end of her life, I knew that the day of her passing would be huge. People often referred to her as a modern day saint so I imagined the pomp and circumstance. But she surprised us.

 On August 31st, 1997 Princess Diana was killed in an automobile accident in France and it was the biggest story of my life time at that point. Her face covered all the front pages, and every news story replayed the tragedy. And quietly, a few days later, on September 5th, Mother Teresa slipped away from earth to return home but constant news coverage of Diana and her funeral preparations left little room for talk of, in my opinion, one of the most powerful women in history. And I think Mother Teresa wanted it that way. 

We worry so much about holding power. But what if we've gotten it all wrong? What if, in pursuit of power we've thrown away our effectiveness? What if power looks different than what we've been taught? 

Luke 9:22-24 “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. “For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? 

Plous, S. “The Nuclear Arms Race: Prisoners Dilemma or Perceptual Dilemma?” Journal of Peace Research, vol. 30, no. 2, 1993, pp. 163–179., doi:10.1177/0022343393030002004.