Facebook Publication Date: 8/21/2022 0:08

Here at Lace on Race, we talk a lot about concept that some of you may be unfamiliar with; they are not in the common lexicon–but we want to change that.

Hesed is one such concept.

Most of you know the bones of what makes for Hesed here in this space, and for our outside lives as well.

It is, in a nutshell, a clear-eyed, muscular, what I have called a ‘Stone Cold Steve Austin/Mr. T’ kind of love, one that takes no prisoners and suffers no fools, but which also, crucially and non-negotiably, employs and enhanced by the Winning Strategies. It is a love that is not afraid to Call A Thing A Thing.

It does indeed suffer long, and is durable and relentless. It sees the worth of every human, and refuses to demean and or deny the base humanity of every person. It is both soft and strong, tangible and trustworthy. It is eye-to-eye love, neither supplicating nor grandiose.

It is a love which never punches down, and we feel here at LoR that it must be a main ingredient in every relationship.

It is also unilateral. Hesed holds; indeed, Hesed *must* hold even in the face of the Other’s animus or contempt. The stance of this durable and trustworthy kind of love must never waver. Even when confronting violence and contempt.

Reading the above, one could think that this gives a certain carte blanche to the Other; they can hurl whatever insults and epithets they choose, fling whatever metaphorical rotten eggs and feces upon us, and we who are committed to Hesed love are required to just stand there and take it.

That would be a mistake; would be a grave misunderstanding of what Hesed is.

Hesed is, among other things, non-violent. That is a kind of constraint–but only from a reductionist perspective. The constraint we self impose forces us to use more of our minds and hearts than is required in simply returning violence for violence.

Because this. Violence, whether physical or ‘just words’; whether covert or overt; whether by direct hits or enforced silence, is actually a moral and ethical laziness.

By contrast Full Respect Living, of which Hesed is one (crucial) element, is rigorous. It demands more of us than violence, either active or passive. The query, after the requisite interrogation of ‘who am I going to be?’, is ‘how can I love this person and hold this person well?’

It is fairly easy for people of good heart to come to this place–and stop here. It’s important to come here, but it is not in itself sufficient.

We must remember this: that holding the Other well, whether it be in the form of an individual person or, as in the last 18 months, in the form of a group or groups, does not entail minimizing or enabling bad behavior.

This is hard for a lot of us to grasp–that we can love well and insist upon shared humanity–the humanity of both the Other and the undiluted humanity of ourselves–in our encounters and engagements.

Hesed says: I love you too much to only react to your baser self, and I love you enough to lovingly confront and stay steady, using each one of the Winning Strategies: choosing curiosity and requesting rather than complaining and demanding; speaking truth with love and savvy; responding with generosity and active rigor; empowering the Other to see and to act from their best selves; and cherishing–with ca fictive imagination of the Other’s past which is driving their present behavior, compassion for the events, choice points, and pain points that make for the person you are encountering in the here and now, and a vision for the person they could become–all while decoupling your response and your holding of them from any future choices they might make.

And all without contempt. Without retaliation. Without withdrawal. Without unbridled self-expression. Hesed is disciplined. It is strategic. Hesed plays long ball.

Ya–remember when I mentioned rigor and strength?

But none of this should come with degradation of self. None of this involves license to the destructive; indeed Hesed demands that you are holding on to your sense of self–your highest and healthiest sense of self. There is nothing in Hesed that should compel one to degrade, devolve, or regress to meet the devolved force of the destructive Other.

Hesed is not injurious. Nor does it tolerate injury–not to Self, not to Other, and not to the collective Other in the destructive person’s path.

Hesed is open to repair–but not at any cost. Not at the cost of the core values which are enfolded within it.

Hesed heals. It heals the Other, even despite their oppositionalism. It heals the self–each time one moves in Hesed in ways that are new, or reinforces an already extant seed of internal Hesed, we move closer to center. It heals the collective Other–heals the world–when the world sees that it can look different than what it has witnessed.

Living Out and Witnessing Hesed in action, both online an in our outside lives, raises the bar for us all.

Permalink: https://www.facebook.com/laceonrace/posts/pfbid0vYwrygbqbekbJgXDn6U7xHa4nffRH7p8hbdTeheBSXsrku5i1uNVbEkirhFC2mGnl

Post Type: Photo

Caption Type: N/A

Is Cross Post: 0

Is Share: 0

Impressions: 968

Reach: 847

Reactions: 5

Comments: 22

Shares: 4