MXMFW 8: Love Your Enemy

So, we’ve talked about Loving our Neighbor, but how do we take that a step further and also try to love our enemy? How do we love people who perpetuate systems of oppression? What would Jesus say about restorative justice and prison abolition? What can we learn from the Dalai Lama? 
Join us as we discuss all these questions—and more—on this episode of My Ex and My Future Wife

CW: This episode contains discussions of childhood sexual abuse and domestic abuse
Episode Transcript: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12oiaOJuVuLwz_ytYi2l_3vNkdgBPE3NG/view?usp=sharing

This episode’s sources:

Stokely Carmichael

Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Davis 

13th documentary directed by Ava DuVernay

Maggie’s dad’s sermon on the New Jerusalem

Restorativejustice.org

@tashmica__ on TikTok

@5hahhem on TikTok

Mia Mingus and the Living Bridges Project

Sujatha Balig and the Restorative Justice Project

Strong Oak and Walking in Balance with All Our Relations curriculum

Theo’s love of DBT

Maggie’s girlfriend

Transcript

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Theo (singing): In the beginning, God made three lesbians who liked to talk, and they loved each other, and they loved God, but they have a few questions and they think you might have a few questions too about religion, gay stuff, and life, so come join me, my ex, and my future wife

Maggie: Hello and welcome to my ex and my future wife, I’m Maggie

Bridget: I’m Bridget, I’m the ex

Theo: I’m Theo, I’m the future wife

M: And today we are doing part two of the Love Series

T: Oh, love that

M: We talked about how loving your neighbor is mutual aid

T: Yeah, that’s the best way to do it 

M: Love your enemy is an addition to loving your neighbor

B: It’s like. step one learn your neighbor. Amazing, now you know how to do that, let’s take it up a notch, next-level stuff

T: I’d heard love your neighbor a ton colloquially, but I’d never heard love your enemy

M: So, it’s mostly credited with Matthew 5:43-48 and it’s

T: Getting back into those boys

M: This is in the sermon on the mount, me and my girlfriend just started this passage, which is partially the inspiration. The text says “You have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? If you greet only your brother, what are you doing more than others, do not even Pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. A quick note, I took that from an NIV Study Bible

B: Shoutout to the Bible Babes

M: This is for you Bible babes, also I have a question for you…Torah hotties?

B: Torah Hotties! Hell Yeah!

M: My study Bible said that “Hate Your enemy”, it’s not in the Old Testament, but was an accepted part of—it just says—“Jewish Ethic” and they like to credit it to the Dead Sea Scrolls, so I was just curious if that was real--

B: I love those guys, the dead sea scrolls

M: Or just anti-Semitic

T: Can I make a note about how in that passage you read it said “even pagans do that” and I feel like that was, not great

M: Yeah, for sure, we’re pro-pagan here

T: I just wanted to make a quick note that we don’t like vibe with that language being used negatively

M: Also I think it’s interesting

B: We’re saying love your enemy or hate your enemy

T: Love your enemy

B: Mmmmmmm, I mean listen I’m not gonna pretend that there isn’t a lot of anti-caninitie sentiment in the Torah

T: There is

B: But I defiantly think that it’s really bold to ever say that anything is a consistent part of Jewish Ethics

T: Also, that anything pro-hate is a part of Jewish Ethics

B: I don’t love that I would say, strike that from the record @ Christians

T: I would say Christians are wrong about Jews once again

B: I would also say, like, no offense but if we’re discussing which religion is more hateful

(Laughter)

B: I don’t think you wanna get into that

T: You make a good point, I don’t think you do either. What were you gonna say, Maggie?

M: This is like a fun fact, Matthew was a tax collector so it’s funny that he says “even tax collectors do that”. 

T: Vibes, there’s a lot of stuff about tax collectors in the Bible it seems like

B: It was a big profession

M: I also say that it’s easy to say “Love Your Enemy” I can say those words and pretend I do it, but what I like about this passage is that when Jesus says “Love your enemy” he means to be perfect like God, which implies that this is a really high bar and very hard to achieve. Loving your enemy is not supposed to be easy and if it is easy, I’m gonna say you’re doing it wrong

T: Yeah, that makes sense

B: Maybe

T: That’s like, a lot of therapy skills like if it feels easy you’re probably like not doing it fully or you just are tricking yourself into thinking that you’re doing it. It pretty much sucks a lot of the time to do therapy skills, so if you are having an okay time, you probably aren’t changing much about your brain, it feels like the same vibes.

B: Can I also say that we may have talked about this in part one, but I am just very intrigued by the similarity, I’m just hearing the same things that I hear from my Elementary Christianity with the Lord’s Prayer, going “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us” which is very pro-forgiveness

T: Which is a whole other thing

B: That’s really reckoning back to me to like loving your enemy and forgiveness defiantly going to be sort of a part of that 

M: For sure, it really is, and also, going into that Loving your enemy implies some degree of like harm or persecution done to this person. A lot of people, when I’ve heard love your enemy recently, it’s like “you should love gay people because God calls us to love our enemy”, or “we should love the poor and the marginalized because God calls us to love our enemy”. And I would argue that’s more loving your neighbor

B: Yeah, I think you’re right

M: And a neighbor issue rather than an enemy issue, cause gay people haven’t persecuted you, I promise

B: Quite the opposite

M: So, homophobic people learning to love gay people is loving your neighbor, but gay people learning to love homophobic people is loving your enemy, but we’ll get to that 

B: What about when you have a frenemy. What about loving your frenemy

M: I think that’s a little bit of both

B: I love to love your frenemy

M: Romans 12 is all Paul’s commentary on this passage in Matthew a little bit, and part of Matthew 12 is in verse 14, Paul says “bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse, live in harmony with one another, don’t be proud but be willing to associate with people of a low position, don’t be conceded”. So that’s kind of the setup, he’s talking about love in general and loving your neighbor, and then he gets into loving your enemy, and in verses, 17-20 Paul says “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone, do not revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written ‘it is mine to revenge I will repay," says the Lors, on the contrary, if you enemy is hungry feed him, if he is thirsty give him something to drink, in doing this you will pour burning coals on his head”. I quoted this partially because it reminds me of the Tiktok sound “I’m gonna let God handle it, cause if I handle it, I’ll go to jail”

(Laughter)

M: And also I wanted to quote this because the heaping burning coals on his head section comes from Proverbs, so like a little Old Testament, so yeah. I just thought that was cool.

T: It is 

M: So based on this passage, me and my girlfriend, this is what we decided, there are two kinds of enemies who persecute you, there’s the kind of people who you probably have a relationship with and they cross boundaries, say harmful things. If you have a sibling, you know what’s up, and this is a pouring coal situation, and you respond to this with kindness, and exposes their poor behavior, then kind of enemy #2, systematic oppression, another beast, this is different because, like, if we think about race-based slavery in the United States, white Americans literally enslaved Black people to serve them when they were hungry and give them water when they were thirsty, so kind of a different situation, and also it reminded me of a Stokely Carmichael quote where he says “Dr. Martin Luther King’s policy that non-violence would achieve the gains for Black people in the United States, his major assumption was that if you were non-violent if you suffered, your opponent would see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good, he only made one foul assumption, in order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience, the United States has none”

T: That’s a good one

B: That’s a good quote

M: So, sometimes when people are experiencing systematic oppression a big part of I think spiritual abuse in the church is to tell them that they just need to love your enemy harder and be kinder to their enemy, and that’s what I heard a lot growing up with homophobia in the church, but, like, being nice to my classmate who has taunted me is a little different than being nice to the people who perpetrate systematic oppression against me, and it’s a bit of a different situation. So, I wanted to make that distinction between enemies real quick

B: That’s a really, really, strong distinction, I appreciate you leading with that

T: Very important

B: Because enemies really can exist in many ways, and oppression, everyone, should be the enemy of us all

M: Absolutely, I like to think Jesus had an understanding of this because he was a Jewish person in the Roman Empire. I always am like, okay Jesus understands

T: Well maybe this is the time for me to give my little piece of Buddhist love your enemy moments

M: Hell yeah

T: That I was taught that I have been reminded of and it is really good. The story is Atisha’s cook, he was a big Buddhist teacher guy, important, so when Atisha was traveling to Tibet to teach the Dharma, you know, be a teacher of Buddhism, he brought a cook with him who would always yell at him and stuff, and he like didn’t need to do that basically he was like very renowned, and so people were like “why the fuck did you bring this cook that yells at you all the time, so many people would want to follow you around and learn from you”, but he was like, “how will I ever learn to practice if I don’t have this guy to yell at me all the time?”

M: That’s a really good time 

T: Yeah so he kind of like on purpose was like, I’m gonna let this guy be so mean to me and just—cause it’s a really good opportunity for me to grow my mind and my spiritual practice, it’s like an opportunity. So, it’s kind of similar, it’s less love your enemy and more, this is an opportunity to change yourself, which I think is really cool

B: That reminds me of the guy with the noisy house 

T: The what?

B: That Jewish story, the guy with the noisy house, except it’s not about loving your enemy at all so I’m not gonna get into it, 'cause it’s like a complete diversion, but it’s just like sometimes you need to learn to appreciate the things that are extremely irritating in your day to day surroundings. Judaism, there’s no like “You need to love your enemy” but there’s just a basic “you need to respect other people and it encourages you to forgive and to reconcile with people, there’s a lot of hearing someone out

T: And in Buddhism, one of the biggest things is compassion for all beings, so that’s big on loving your enemy, cause you need to have compassion for all beings even if you feel frustrated with somebody, or disagree with somebody, you still need to have compassion for them, or else you will never achieve enlightenment is the idea, but like you’ll never be happy and satisfied with yourself if you hold hatred for other people, so.

M: I will say, I did focus a lot of my notes on what does it mean to love people who perpetuate oppression cause I feel like a lot of, well we can talk about, like, an annoying classmate, or a terrible cook, or something like that, I think there is a lot to talk about there, but I feel like what does it mean to love people who perpetuate oppression, is a bit of a meatier

B: It’s a big challenge

M: Meatier challenge

T: It’s less of a surface level love your enemy, you can say “love your enemy” you can love the person who annoys you in class, but kind of trying to wrap your head around loving someone who oppresses you.

B: It’s really hard. I think about this a lot with police, I’m like I don’t really, nothing within me calls me to have any compassion for them whatsoever, but that’s I think, you know what I’m not saying there should be, but I think that it’s always important to interrogate our own impulses towards being unfeeling, even if I’m able to process and understand and be like, that’s valid and reasonable, I feel like it’s you know, it’s good to think about.

T: It’s hard also as somebody who tends to take blame that I shouldn’t or, you know, people who tend to take blame that they shouldn’t, to be like because in order to grow from that, you have to learn how to be mad at people for things you are justified to be mad at them about, and so then taking that and then trying to reconcile love your enemy when you’re like, and then like what is the difference between loving them and holding them responsible, and can you be mad at someone and still love them? Can you never talk to someone again and still love them? You know. There’s a lot of nuances there, so. 

M: I am learning how to do this every day, and I am bad at it, so if people have advice on how to love your enemy, hit me up

T: I mean, I think you can give yourself a little more credit

M: I know, but I did want to talk about one of my favorite sermons that my dad has ever given on why we should love our enemy and it makes me cry every time I think about it, so if y’all are ready to get into that, do we wanna do that?

B: I’m ready

M: Let’s get into it, this is more scripture, and this sermon is on like Revelation 21 and Isaiah 60, so in revelation 21, it’s a picture of the new Jerusalem, and the holy city, and it says “Look God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them, they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God, he will wipe away tears from every eye, there will be no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain for the old order of things has passed away, the Lord God almighty and the lamb are at the temple, the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the Glory of God gives it light and the lamb is it’s lamp, the nations will walk by its light and the kings of the Earth will bring their splendor into it, on no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there, the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it, nothing impure will ever” this is key, “nothing impure will ever enter it nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those who are written in the lamb’s book oof life” and this is like people of every nation and tongue from generation to generation, so this is like such a cool picture, I vibe with this so hard, this is like a key part of my faith, is thinking about the New Heavens and the New Earth. Sorry, I’m not gonna cry, I’m really strong 

(Laughter)

M: One of the best parts about this, is that it takes all of the Nations to adequately reflect the glory of God, they all need to be in Jerusalem in order for this vision to be achieved. So, if we leave out groups of people, we leave out part of the image of God, and this Revelation is drawing on Isaiah 60 about the New Jerusalem, and Isaiah 60 says “Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you, see darkness covers the Earth and thick darkness over the peoples, but the Lord raises you up and his glory appears before you, nations will come to your light, and kings of the brightness of your dawn” and then in verse 9 it says “surely the islands look to me, in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar with their silver and gold to honor you and the Lord, your God, the holy one of Israel, for he has endowed your people with wonder” and the people of Tarshish are money loving, they are opposed to God, they are evil, they are Jerusalem’s enemies they are not good, they are the image of human pride, and they are leading the march into the New Jerusalem, they are an integral part of New Jerusalem, but they are still discernable as ships of Tarshish, they didn’t become Israelite ships, they are entering the City of God, they are the leaders into the City of God, they are pure, they are clean, they are not wicked, but they are still discernably ships of Tarshish. And so, I read that, and I say that is the coolest shit I’ve ever heard

T: Yeah, there is so much there, there’s like the part about God creates good and evil, the whole reason why Satan doesn’t need to exist for us because it makes way more sense that God created everything, you know, including the bad stuff, and it feels like a cop-out to blame Satan for the bad stuff, and then there’s so much

B: What I love about that is how it’s very anti-homogeneity, it’s very anti-assimilation, it’s very much like we, you know, we need to be able to—just like we were talking about when we were doing supersessionism we need to be able to accept each other’s differences 

T: It’s kind of an atypical thing of Christianity, I mean there’s a lot of things in the Bible that modern Christianity doesn’t reflect, of the whole we don’t need to change these people in order for us to live with them

B: Yeah I love that

T: That’s like great, it’s not like we’ve made these people better and now they can come in the New Jerusalem, it’s like everybody as they are needs to be part of this because it needs to reflect God in every way, which is very cool

M: It’s so cool

T: It’s very acceptance focused, which I love

M: It’s so cool, and I think I learned this firsthand when I learned to Texas, small-town Texas, and I was an arrogant little city kid, and I was like I’m gonna change everybody’s minds because these people are so silly and ignorant. Terrible attitude to go to moving to a new place, very prideful of me, not good, but then God schooled me and showed me how God was moving in small-town Texas and I disagreed with a lot of stuff that the people said there, and they did say not nice things to be sometimes, homophobic and misogynistic things at times, but they extended grace to me first and welcomed me in all of my city kid arrogance into their home and they fed me, and they became my family and I’m gonna go visit them, and it was like, Maggie the image of God is reflected in conservative, Bible Belt southern Baptist Texas, and they don’t need to be woke liberal Christians in order to be the Image of God

T: That’s big

M: So, I think step one to loving your enemy is they are Imago Dei, is kind of what I’ve gotten so far

T: That’s like a big one for a lot of important independent religious work I feel like, like understanding that everyone is Imago Dei is pretty important.

M: Just a little bit important 

(Laughter)

B: You wanna define term there? 

T: Well it just means made in the image of God, right?

B: Yeah, which is betzelem elokim

T: Right. It seems like really trying to love your enemy takes a lot of, I don’t know, you don’t have to do all that work to hate them, you know what I mean? It takes a lot of energy to hate people, and it actually sometimes is easier to just not do that instead, it kind of takes a burden off of you in a certain way, even though it’s also really hard to do it.

M: Is it dialectic time?

B: Is it dialectical?

M: I think it might be dialectical

T: Yes

B: I feel like I think a lot about how everyone is made in the Image of God

T: I think about it a lot too

B: That’s something that we have to really remember

T: Yeah I think about that only all the time

B: It’s the very “there’s some good in every one thing”. But I also think, I balance for myself a lot that just because there’s some good in everyone doesn’t mean that people can’t be net bad, you know? Like a lot of people are still at the end of the day net bad, even if they do have some good in them, and I think that’s important to acknowledge and be able to live with that.

T: It’s hard to parse where everybody’s made in the Image of God and I should love my enemy, and then also some people need to change what they think because it’s harmful to others. Like where do those two kind of split and where do they meet and how do we act on progressing society and also accept people as they are, and it’s kind of a 

M: Yeah cause in Romans 12 right before it gets into love your enemy, it also says “hate what is evil, cling to what is good”

T: It’s kind of like a love the sinner hate the sin type of deal almost, which makes me feel bad because that’s not a real thing, and also it’s used for homophobia a lot, but it’s kind of what you have to do because I also hate the word sin and I think we should stop using it as a society, but when people do bad things, I don’t know, people shouldn’t do bad things, and if they do bad things, you are allowed to be like “that sucks”.

B: Yeah, and you’re allowed to set boundary’s and you're allowed to not forgive people and you are allowed to have discomfort towards people who are threatening or harmful to you, and I think that you can do that and still be investing energy and effort into loving your enemy. Loving your enemy doesn’t mean compromising your own safety. Loving your enemy doesn’t mean putting yourself in a position where you’re uncomfortable, I mean it can, but not uncomfortable where you like truly feel threatened, but uncomfortable in a way where you are like this is a discomfort I can sit with and it gonna be worthwhile

T: Right, uncomfortable like you have less resources than you did before because you gave some to somebody else, you know? Which, fine. Or like uncomfortable in like I need to recognize my privilege and my prejudice and that’s uncomfortable but that’s a good thing to sit with, but I agree with you, not like unsafe. Also, you can love your enemy without directly engaging with them, you can do it more in theory, especially if they have done really bad stuff, we’re not asking you to let pedophiles in their house, that’s not something we are trying to do, because that’s not, straight up

M: Safe

T: Absolutely not. It’s pretty much a really complex and nuanced topic it seems

M: Maybe, a little bit.

T: I wanna hear about prison abolition 

M: Okay

B: I wanna hear about prison abolition too.

M: So loving your enemy, it makes me so angry that it’s just restorative justice because restorative justice is so hard, and I think a lot of people in the United States, we have a gut reaction, if people wrong us and wrong our community—our enemies if you will—we should put them in prison, we should put them away, we should remove them

B: It’s really big right now to joke about sending people to jail for things

T: That’s true

B: And it always, like I’ll make those jokes and then I’m like, these jokes make me uncomfortable

M: It makes sense when someone hurts you, you wanna be like

B: Get out of here, leave

T: Your gut reaction is, I need to have that situation not close to me

B: I need to have you be away from me

T: Which is fair, I think, but the answer is not putting them in prison

M: I think Jesus calls us to abolish prisons

T: Say more

M: Quick caveat, as the documentary 13th demonstrates and Are Prisons Obsolete, and all that good literature, the prison system is just legalized slavery, a way to punish Black people, to keep them out of society, and so I think dealing with unethical prisons and the prison system in the United States is more in line with God’s call for justice for the oppressed, cause Jesus and his disciples were wrongfully imprisoned regularly, and so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Jesus wants to abolish unjust prisons. But that’s not what I’m talking about here

T: Right, we’re talking about the concept of imprisonment in more of a nebulous conceptual way, rather than our actual prison system we have in America

M: Exactly, so I think, this makes me so angry (laughter), sometimes God asks me to do stuff and I’m like shit, no, that’s hard

T: It’s like oh fuck, really

M: Fuck it

T: Like the fucking tarot card bro

M: So, I believe personally that Jesus calls us to a more restorative justice, and I kind of realized this when I found a TikTok and it’s by the user, I’m not sure it’s by @5hahhem, they said “Left-leaning spaces can be more carceral than moderate or right-wing spaces” 

T: Interesting, say more

M: And then someone dueted it, @tashmica, I think in Left-Leaning spaces, I don’t know fellow people who are in left-leaning spaces, when someone does something wrong, we tend to say “go away”

T: Yeah

B: There’s not a lot of forgiving and there’s not a lot of room for growth a lot of the time

M: And so, this user who dueted it was like I think we should take a page out of the transformative/restorative justice approach, and a lot of people who are doing restorative justice approach are actually survivors of childhood sexual assault, and they are working to break cycles of abuse, learning how to respond to abuse as a community, and big abuse, like childhood sexual abuse, like that’s some serious stuff, so Mia Mingus has a project called The Living Bridges project where it’s like a collection of a lot of people and how they’ve responded to childhood sexual abuse and ways to challenge our response to being like, “oh, jail”. Like, I think a lot of times, a lot of places will be like, wow I hope that person rots in jail, like challenging that, and then there’s another Buddhist activist and she’s the coolest person I’ve ever heard of. I think her name is Sujatha Balig, I think is how you pronounce her name, and she works on the Restorative Justice Project, and her work is categorized by “equal parts dedication to crime survivors and people who’ve survived harm” and she, you should look her up, she has a bunch of talks on the internet, and I watched several of her talks cause I just think she’s so cool, and so she talks about this experience where she went and met the Dalai Lama to talk about abuse specifically, especially when it’s like close to home

T: The Dalai Lama

M: And she was like, “hey Dalai Lama, anger is killing me, but it’s also motivating my work, how do you work on behalf of abused people without anger?” And the Dalai Lama asked her, “Do you feel you’ve been angry long enough”. That’s the sexist response I’ve ever heard about forgiveness I have to say.

(Laughter)

M: So, she talks about how anger was important to her, and it’s one of the five stages of grief, but eventually it stopped benefitting her

T:  Yeah, I have a lot of feelings about that

M: So, the Dalai Lama told her to meditate, and align herself with her enemies without excusing their behavior, and consider their position and their needs when you engage with them

T: That’s like so sexy, I’m obsessed with that

B: That’s pretty good Dalai Lama

T: Pretty good my Dalai Lama

M: Pretty Solid

T: What I would expect from the Dalai Lama, that is like

M: That is like so …

B: I really appreciate that, it’s very much like, we acknowledge that anger is useful and normal and healthy and can be a tool, but you have to know when to let it go.

T: And you have to learn when to let it go, dialectical. Not to talk about DBT again (sigh)

M: I think it’s time

B: DBT moment

T: DBT moment, that is one thing that DBT does say, and DBT is informed by Buddhism a lot

M: Oh, that’s a little sexy

T: I know it is. Like every emotion you have is useful and trying to serve a purpose, it just sometimes is doing it for the wrong reasons and there’s a big emphasis on when people have unhealthy coping mechanisms, this served you and kept you safe and kept you sane at a certain period of time when you needed that, and now that you’re out of that situation it no longer serves you, and that’s why it should be something that you work on not doing anymore, you know what I mean? You know, certain behaviors like, this is gonna get really intense cause it’s kind of the only example I can think of right now, but like people-pleasing behavior can keep you safer in abuse situations, and so then people adopt that as a way to respond to somebody else’s anger for example, and that serves you when you needed to survive in an abuse situation, but then when you’re out of that abuse situation, that’s a behavior that’s gonna make you not be able to have healthy relationships, and so it’s something you need to change. I’m really very into the dialectic of whatever emotion you’re having or behavior that you’re doing that seems to not really be the best for what’s happening, it served you at one point and it was useful, and now it’s served its purpose and is done, and now it needs to be done, and that’s the truth with anger, and that’s the truth with a lot of emotions and the stages of grief, you’re brain is providing you a reaction that’s gonna keep you safe, it’s just not necessarily grounded in reality and that’s why it needs to be fixed. Anyways, I’m a big fan of that whole situation.

M: I don’t know if I’ve defined restorative justice yet, so I’ll do it right now, so from restorativejustice.org, thanks homie, restorative justice is a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior, so it’s like a cooperative process that includes all stakeholders, and this can lead to the transformation of people, relationships, and communities, so it’s kind of like a sit down and you discuss what happened, you discuss how you feel, you discuss…start to understand why this event happened, why this harm was caused, and a lot of times the victims are like “hey, I like this better than just sending them to jail” and also a lot of times perpetrators are like “I do want to apologize, I do want to make amends, I do want to learn the harm I have caused”, and I found out that another restorative justice activist Strong Oak, this idea of like sitting down and having a conversation does come from Native traditions, like it’s a very indigenous practice called Circle

T: Love that

M: Yeah, so Strong Oak is using circle—a process where communities, agencies, and providers work with survivors of abuse as a way to restore it, so yeah. And she started a curriculum called Walking in Balance with All Our Relations, and this curriculum is designed to decolonize, specifically indigenous people, but also can be used for anybody, and reclaim this kind of historical way of being in the community.

T: I’m a big fan, that’s like very good, and also I find that or I’ve noticed that people who’ve been in abuse situations and then are completely removed from them and are safe and whatever have a lot of feelings, I don’t know like there’s still a lot of resentment, which I think is completely justified, but it’s something you still keep thinking about, and there’s a certain point where it’s like “have you been angry long enough”, it’s a similar thing, like it actually would cause you less pain to stop being angry about it, if that’s what you choose to do, and just like with any situation where somebody’s wronged you, even if you’re removed from the situation, even if they went to jail, you still have these lingering feelings you haven’t worked through, it’s like you always have this question of: why did you do that though? Like, why would somebody do that to me? In any situation where somebody’s been wronged, and you’ll never know if you don’t talk to them in this way, and it’s a hard thing to say that because there’s a lot of nuances in telling survivors to talk to their abusers, that’s a big, there’s a lot of steps that need to be taken before that could ever possibly happen, you know what I mean? It’s a complicated subject, but like, if there was structure in place to make it possible in a healthy way, it seems like.

M: I also wanted to bring up Strong Oak, not to be like “wow restorative justice, what a new idea that no one’s ever thought of before” when indigenous people have been doing it forever

T: Like as usual

M: As usual, yeah.

T: Okay let’s tie this back into loving your enemy though, and I mean I think it is pretty clearly tied in there, but like I think a big thing that ties those two together for me is, your enemy, you know somebody whose wronged you, has to be part of the process of healing from it, which I think is really interesting. They don’t have to, but sometimes it serves you, serves the victim more if they are, and then also serves the perpetrator and also maybe prevents future abuse like it seems like all possible.

M: Restorative Justice reduces recidivism rates, or like re-offences

T: Yeah, which is HUGE

B: Because it also, what it does is create a pathway to remaining a part of the community, or to restoring your relationship with the community, instead of treating you as an exile from the community, and just ostracizing you 

T: Which is so big, so good. It seems like restorative justice is really hard

M: Oh God, yeah

B: It is so hard everything about it seems so hard

T: Like so hard, and it ends up producing a way better outcome than the easy option

B: Well, loving your enemy is way harder than loving your neighbor, and people struggle with loving your neighbor

T: I know!

M: Like loving your neighbor is hard enough

B: You can see the position we’re in

T: Loving your enemy is way harder! 

B: So hard, but worth it

M: To quote my mom, “Loving the poor sucks”

B: What?

M: Which she said in context of, it’s easier not to love the poor, it’s easier not to love marginalized people, it’s a lot easier not to do that

T: Because then you can just be ignorant and then you don’t have to think about all the weight that is happening to people, I see what you’re saying

B: It’s like how its easier to not really care about climate change, like not to deny climate change, but to not think about it

T: Yeah, it’s so much easier to just be avoidant, like all of the time it’s easier, which is a big thing in therapy, it’s like a lot easier to stay miserable most of the time

B: It’s also just a lot easier just to ignore problems and to not engage with them meaningfully, and if you’re not loving your enemy, if you’re just gonna ignore the fact that enemies even exist and that they’re humans, and you just decide not to engage in all of that, it’s certainly going to be simpler for you, but the world is not going to be kinder for it

T: It’s true, and your quality of relationships and connections is gonna be less because it’s an important thing to do in the world.

B: God damit podcast making me confront m own avoidance issues once again

M: The hardest thing I’ve ever done is confronted my family’s homophobia, that is the hardest thing I’ve done in my whole life

T: It’s like really hard

M: Do I regret it? No. Was it painful for both parties? Absolutely. I think it’s easy to imagine yourself as someone who…like a victim in a restorative justice situation because we’re all like “Oh yeah I’ve been hurt by others”. It also sucks to realize that you’ve hurt others, that shit does not go good in my heart

B: Yeah that is not a fun feeling

T: It’s really bad

B: But if you think about being the perpetrator of harm and you consider if you would rather have restorative justice done upon you, or you would rather be cast out and ostracized, I’m gonna be honest, like obviously, the easy answer is to say that you would prefer restorative justice, but participating in restorative justice isn’t gonna be easy for the person who perpetrated harm either. That’s challenging too because they, instead of just being like “Oh you’re right I’m terrible, just like throw me out with the garbage, bla, bla, bla”. You have to face and really grapple with the harm that you’ve done, and you have to actually put effort into making amends, and again is gonna be more worthwhile, but it’s challenging for everyone, and I think that’s important to acknowledge

T: Especially when we talked about forgiveness, it’s not up to the perpetrator to decide when they’re been redeemed or when they’re worthy of whatever, you know being not seen as that anymore, which is really hard because you can feel like you’ve done enough and this person can be like “no you haven’t” and that’s not up to you. So restorative justice it’s not easy for the perpetrator either

B: I just feel like that’s important to acknowledge because it’s easy to be like “of course like, I don’t know, criminals would advocate for restorative justice, but this is, restorative justice is for everyone and it is hard for everyone. 

M: I think that’s why anti-racism work is so hard, just because it is being like “wow”. I think for me because I work with kids a lot, I think realizing that because of my racism I have created an unsafe environment for children of color, and even just me in my room by myself thinking of that, not a good time in realizing that

T: It makes you feel very bad, it’s an important feeling to have

M: I’d rather just not think about that and just go to racist jail, you know, like just go to racist jail for a period of time

B: Because then you just kind of get to mope

M: That seems so much sexier

T: Like so much easier than being like let me deal with the consequences of my action and the harm I caused unintentionally, I mean even intentionally, but when it’s unintentional too. I have hurt like many people in my life because of my problems that I have and also just cause of whatever

B: Well, I’m extremely emotionally careless with the people around me.

T: But what I was gonna say, this whole topic reminds me a lot of when you’re working with kids, especially young kids, and somebody throws something at somebody and it hits them and they start crying and then the whole process you have to do, is you show the person who is the perpetrator of violence, you’re like, look at how they feel and you ask the victim how they feel and they tell you “I feel upset because you hurt me” and then the perpetrator needs to, the important thing for kids to learn is what other people feel when they do certain things

B: Well, that’s teaching empathy, and a lot of restorative justice is about teaching empathy on a bigger scale

T: It seems like that’s a little version of the big thing like that’s restorative justice on a tiny scale, which I just think is really cool

M: To conclude, don’t be religious because God will make you do restorative justice and it absolutely sucks ass

(laughter)

B: I thought you were going to full stop don’t be religious and then you basically did

(laughter)

T: Our conclusion is don’t ever do what we do cause it’s really hard. Stop caring about people, it’s too hard 

M: This shit does not feel good. We’re canceling empathy on this podcast

T: But also in all seriousness, please do it, please have empathy and work on, or at least compassion is more important, I hate empathy

B: Why do you hate empathy, do you hate when people say they’re empaths

T: But the empathy redirect in terms of talking about people with low empathy as people who are never capable of compassion is like really bad because they’re different things and also it is just ableist, so I think that’s important to know. Buddhism, basically the main teaching is compassion for all beings, and that’s been my thing since I was born basically, so I’m huge on compassion, I love that word it’s my favorite word, and I also think it’s really useful in not being ableist with empathy redirect. Being religious is hard also thinking about these things is hard but it’s so worth it, and it’s worth it

M: It is worth it, I know I’ve done it before, and I’m like look at how my relationship with my parents has grown and changed over time and look how, but still. (Laughter). And I do want to do it again if causes harm to me, or if I cause harm to someone else, I would like to go through that process again, but like damn. That’s the hardest shit I’ve ever done.

B: Okay any closing thoughts on loving your enemy

T: Fucking hard bro

B: Yeah, that’s my closing thought is that it’s very necessary and also 

T: So hard, both of those factors are important I feel like, the fact that it’s important and the fact that’s it’s hard. It’s important to acknowledge both of those and then still do it

M: Thank you for tuning in to My Ex and My Future Wife, you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @mxmfwpod

B: And TikTok

M: And TikTok, you can also email us if you have thoughts, feelings, questions at mxmfwpodcast@gmail.com. As this episode goes out, tell us on Twitter or on Instagram, have you tried restorative justice, what are your thoughts?

B: What is loving your enemy look like for you

T: And tweet at us, use our little @mxmfwpod

M: Thanks again for joining us, I’m Maggie

B: I’m Bridget

T: I’m Theo

M: And until next week, be gay and question God

T (singing): My Ex and My Future Wife