The Trail Up the Middle

The grand hypocrisy of our era is the coexistence of the ideal of inclusion with a merciless commitment to exile those not like ourselves. This is no new thing, but it is an amplified one. For the nature of the digital technology through which we often communicate is supremely binary. And at the essence of all things in this medium—even the most eloquent of AI-engineered dramas—is a stark series of ones and zeros. 

It is no surprise, then, that at the level of our society and our world, the polarization of our perceptions into “us” and “them” has hypertrophied. 

But there are women and men throughout history who have chosen to be neither “for” nor “against” anyone. They are souls who have too great a sense of sympathy for the combatants on both sides—and too great a sense of agony over their wrongdoings to comfortably fit in with either. 

But neither are they like the gray souls of Dante’s fictional epic, Inferno (canto 3), souls loathsome to heaven and hell alike because of their lack of decisive courage. For in their time on earth they had done nothing of note either good or evil, but had kept their heads down in a lifelong quest for conflict avoidance. 

Instead, the souls throughout history who have chosen to be neither “for” nor “against” anyone—and yet courageously shaped life-giving outcomes—are those who chose to do the thing that is at one and the same time the most relevant for all involved—but also the most vulnerable for themselves. And what is that? They step into the middle. 

I recall doing such a thing when I lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, in early 2001, when a Taliban enforcer raised his rod to punish an Afghan man who had overslept in my guest quarters and missed the gathering for pre-dawn prayers. The Talib banged on the courtyard gate of my home and awakened the Afghan, for he knew the man was inside; the Talib kept a roll of all the men in the neighborhood of Chahār-rāhi-ye Ansāri, where I lived. The Afghan man opened the gate and stepped into the street before the Talib, a stern soul with a white turban and black eyeliner.

“God will not hear our supplications to break the drought unless all of us are present,” the Talib said. And, as a member of the branch of the police enforcing religious tradition, he was given the authority to strike men with a rod of iron similar to rebar—but covered with leather “for mercy’s sake,” as they put it.

The Talib did not know I had heard his words, for I had come and was behind the gate. But, upon hearing these words, I chose to step into the middle of the matter. I stepped into the street between the two men.

Although I was dressed in Afghan clothing and spoke the local language, it was clear to the Talib that the red-bearded, fair-skinned man speaking to him was a foreigner. (In their language, khāreji—“outsider.”) But the lawman let me speak.

“Sir, this man is my guest,” I said. “He spent the night under my roof. You know the tradition of hospitality. As his host, I am his covering, his safeguard. I am responsible for him. Therefore, if there is anyone who has done anything wrong, it is I, for I did not wake him to go to prayer. Therefore, it is I whom you must punish.” 

And with that I rolled up my sleeves, stretched out my arms, and offered them to him. “Strike here, please.”

The Talib grew still. A presence descended into the midst of the three of us—Talib, Afghan, and outsider.

The lawman dropped his head. Then, after a moment, he lifted it.

“Never mind,” he said quietly. “Be at peace.” Then he turned to the Afghan: “Go your way, sir.”

In microcosm, that experience illustrates what people have done throughout history to redirect outcomes from death-giving ones to life-giving.

In the next several essays, we will look at men and women who have done just that. Our goal will be to discern what we can incorporate into our lives from theirs, both their mindset and the habits they practiced. In doing so, we will pick up their trail. And thus, we will, like them, save lives—but at risk to ourselves.

The price tag for this disposition is to be misunderstood. You may be judged as irrelevant when in fact you are vital. You may be condemned as not caring enough to take a stand when in fact you are pouring out every last drop of love you have. Settle it in your heart ahead of time that it does not matter how people categorize you, what they label you, and which branding iron they apply to your vulnerability. For you know life will be imparted. 

Most do not pay that price. But a few do. 

In upcoming essays, we will look at souls like:

• Asa Jennings, a hunchbacked, squeaky-voiced, failed preacher who earned the respect of the future ruler of a nation, the trust of jaded world powers, and the undying gratitude of hundreds of thousands whose lives he played a key role in saving in Smyrna (Izmir).
• St. Maria Skobtsova, a former bohemian “wild child” and socialist radical who wrestled with disillusionment, began again—and voluntarily took the place of a woman bound for the gas chambers of Ravensbrück. 
• St. Francis of Assisi, a man who forsook potential fortune as a merchant, renounced real fame as a holy man—and who made both sides of a Middle East conflict feel uncomfortably convicted before they drew swords on each other.
• Gladys Aylward, who, deemed unqualified by more than one British society, traveled by train to China via Russia anyway—and rescued about a hundred orphans, leading them on foot through mountains as war fell upon the nation. 
• John Vassar, a limping former brewery hand who walked among both armies as they gathered for the Battle of Gettysburg. Whether it was a general or a buck private, he asked one simple question of each man whose eyes he looked into, a question they could not shake.
• Jackie Pullinger, an oboist who earned the trust of the heroin-dealing Triads of Hong Kong in the part of town called the Kowloon Walled City. As emaciated addicts gained weight there, other addicts asked them the question, “Why are you so fat?” And Jackie became the matriarch to a generation of people set free.

What you can see already is that none of these people were born demigods. None had a special unction sealing them from harm and setting them on a course for greatness. No. They were humans who made choices. But they were the sort of choices anchored in convictions made firm through lives of perseverance. And they were choices that redirected others toward life, and, thereby God, who is the source of life. For the mystery of the kingdom of heaven is, in one sense, a vast collaborative project. Love, which is never coercive but honors the choice of the other, mandates it so. Therefore it can accurately be said that all the resources of heaven and the Author of Life are at the disposal of those who make courageous choices to shape life-giving outcomes for others. 

The same holds for you. 

Do not worry about your calling. Concern yourself with stepping into the middle, where relevance and vulnerability are one. Looking back, it will be clear what your calling was, and is.

© Kurt Mähler