What use is a vaccine that does not make the body sick? What use is a vaccine that the body does not try to kill? Does not try to crucify? I don't know that the medical science is as straightforward as that, but that's the prevailing wisdom, or certainly it used to be.
I can only loosely paraphrase Dr. King who being criticized for 'upsetting things' said that 'the purpose of unviolence was not to create tension, was not to upset people, but that it was to reveal the hidden tension, to reveal that people, and the way of good, were already upset.
I've shared often, and for decades it's been clear to me that if those who can't abide the status quo of needless suffering and needless death, if in the sick body of today's humanity they're not getting crucified, they're not doing the job. They're of no hope. If they are getting crucified, that doesn't mean they're doing the job; they may be needlessly bastards, abusive, arrogant, hypocrites, taunters, ranters. But if in a sick body the vaccine is not getting crucified, attacked; if the body's not attempting to kill it, not hostile to it, bearing it in ridicule, slander, deliberately perverting its message, and dismissing, diminishing... if the vaccine is not provoking such responses it is not doing its job; it's of no hope.
Gandhi said, 'I'm asking you to fight, not to provoke their anger; I'm asking you to fight against their anger.' He further said, 'The duty of the unviolent warrior,' and I'm giving him words that I think he might like better, 'the duty of the unviolent warrior is to provoke a response.'
The duty of the vaccine is to provoke a response. This is NOT license for the unviolent warrior, but rather, a grave duty and responsibility to do wisely, constructively, responsibly with never a spec of self-indulgence or animosity, but courageous service of each and ALL.
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