Rachel Held Evans posted a beautiful blog today about how hard nonviolence is, and quoted Shane Claiborne:

When we talk about peacemaking and the ?third way of Jesus,? people inevitably ask bizarre situational questions like, ?If someone broke into your house and was raping your grandmother, what would you do??

The thing is, I don’t hear the Source of Love calling me to adopt a non-violent strategy for getting by in the world. The call I hear is way simpler, and, in some ways, harder. It’s a call to drop my agenda, to surrender, all the way, to love.

I don’t get to decide whether to get in an airplane and fire a missile intended to destroy people and property in Libya. I don’t get to decide whether to walk with my family to the town square in Benghazi to protest. I don’t get to decide what anybody else should do, only what I will do. And what I will do, when and as I can, is to love.

Sometimes, that love involves action, and sometimes it involves sitting with pain, tears streaming down my face. Sometimes it involves getting in the way of someone who would cause harm, and sometimes it involves not getting in the way. I’m never sure I have found the most loving path. But once each moment passes, I find myself in a new moment, with a new opportunity to love.