Pace e Bene Nonviolence Service’s Vision of Spirituality

The word “spirituality” developed in three historical phases, according to a specialist in the study of spirituality, Professor Sandra M. Schneiders.  

First, in the early Christian Church the spiritual life referred to the working or activity of the Holy Spirit in the members of the believing community.  Second, in the Middle Ages and on into the 20th century, “spirituality” designated the inner life of the Christian seeking more than ordinary holiness.  Third, beginning approximately in the mid-twentieth century, “spirituality” came to mean religious experience, broadly conceived beyond its specifically Christian context of origin, so that it was now possible to speak of a feminist spirituality, an African spirituality, a Buddhist spirituality, or a New Age spirituality.

Now we are entering a fourth phase: the emergence of “Engaged Spirituality” — a spirituality that is the lived experience of actively and integrally involved in transforming the world by consciously integrating: the process of social change; values and principles that stress the well-being of all; practices for interior transformation, including contemplative practices that nurture connection with and awareness of the interconnectedness of all life, and practices that help us embody that awareness by challenging and transforming all that; and community-building that supports this orientation.

Engaged Spirituality is also often broadly inclusive: a spirituality that is the living, unfolding experience of our journey toward wholeness in relationship to our ultimate value and meaning as persons, communities, and humanity.  Put simply, inclusive spirituality is life compassionately seeking the wholeness and well-being of all.  It can flourish within the context of a particular religious tradition or no religious tradition at all.
 
Engaged Spirituality is rooted in a vision of the well-being of all and are comprised of practices that:

1.    Integrate the whole person: mind, heart, body and spirit;
2.    Connect personal transformation and social change;
3.    Offer spiritual grounding and rituals for the nonviolent life;
4.    Create safe space for transforming personal and social violence;
5.    Explore the history and practice of spiritually-grounded nonviolence; and
6.    Encourage the development of nonviolence communities for support, reflection, and action.

Pace e Bene’s Engaged Spirituality is, specifically, a Spirituality of Engaged Nonviolence, rooted in the vision of nonviolent power articulated by Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Defined as “a force for justice, truth and the well-being of all that uses neither violence nor passivity,” nonviolent power is unifying, creative, connecting, compassionate and cooperative — as opposed to the coercive power of violence, which is threatening, dominating, and destructive.  Coercive power ultimately separates.  Nonviolent power brings us closer together.

This Engaged Nonviolence is rooted in the following principles:

• We all matter.
• We are all connected.
• We all have a piece of the truth and the un-truth.
• We all suffer when we divide ourselves into “Us versus Them,” an attitude that fuels violence and blocks our full humanity.
• We strengthen violence when we cooperate with it.
• We are not reducible to the evil we commit.
• The means are the ends in the making — and therefore need to be consistent.
• Our power to connect and create is stronger than our power to dominate and destroy.
• We have more power than we think to create nonviolent options.
• Love is stronger than fear and destruction.

Pace e Bene’s spirituality of social justice is engaged, inclusive, and nonviolent. This spirituality of Engaged Nonviolence is organized love unleashed to transform personal, interpersonal, and social violence, including the violence of social injustice.

But this “love that does justice” (as Dr. King put it) is not only a force for resistance.  It is also constructive.  It is the power that can be used to create social structures and attitudes of lasting justice, reflecting creative and concrete applications of the principles and practices of Engaged Nonviolence.