"When you begin to think outside the box, you often become some other "leaders" lousy follower. That usually costs something" (Andy Rayner)

"Our guardian angels are bored." (Mike Foster)

It's where I feel I'm at these days. “In the second half of life, it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor. Life is more participatory than assertive, and there is no need for strong or further self-definition” (Falling Upward. Richard Rohr.120).

Sunday, November 18, 2018

I'm Begging You To Stop Carrying My Bag

You can show that you have rights and deserve respectable treatment easily enough without fighting to insit on it. You can resist or refuse and suffer arrest. 

By going the second mile you are putting the soldier in the place of being accused of oversteping his authoriry. 

He is humbled and humiliated and now you are in a position of equality, or more -  the law may now permit you to punish him. 

Even I have human right too. See we are both equal humans. You could be charged for resisiting to carry thr bag, to prove human dignity. The better is not resist and show the truth of it in a non violent and messy way. 

"Going the second mile was a response to Roman military rules. A soldier could demand that a member of the local populace carry the soldiers heavy pack. But the Romans were relatively enlightened occupiers. To prevent undo hardship on any one person impressed into service, the rule banned the soldier from coercing more than one mile out of any commoner. In that context, Jesus suggested that when commandeered to carry a pack, the commoner should carry it a second mile. Once into that second mile, the commoner has put the soldier into the awkward position of breaking his own regulations and eventually may bring him to beg the commoner not to carry the pack. All three of these commands (turn cheek, give undergatement alao) from Jesus or suggestions by which a person in the disadvantage position could turn the tables and gain the upper hand against a supposed social Superior, yet without using violence."
- J. Denny Weaver. Becoming Anabaptist 

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