Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace by Bernie Glassman
(Bell Tower Books, 1998)

What does it take to change the world? Many people claim they want to make a difference, but what are they willing to invest to make it happen? This is a central theme in Bernie Glassman's, Bearing Witness. Glassman, a Jewish convert to Zen Buddhism, reveals his journey from passive believer and teacher to active peacemaker in this provocative essay. Anyone ready to dismiss this book because it is not "Christian" will miss out on a powerful call to true discipleship. The vows of the peacemaker, the tenets of Buddhism, and the challenge to action are every bit as valid to the Christian believer as to the Buddhist. This book is much more "Christian" than many Christian books.

Glassman lays out a simple and fundamental thesis: We have a deep desire to make a difference in the world, and we have everything we need to get the job done. The pathway to making the world a better place is peacemaking. "Over and over again," Glassman writes, "I run into people who tell me they want to make peace but that they have to learn more, know more, become better people or become enlightened before they can start working on behalf of others. For me that's the state of being stingy. Each of us is more than qualified to do peacemaking" (p. 203).

Bearing Witness is a book about what people can do to heal the world. Glassman speaks of many kinds of brokenness on our planet and the level of commitment and action required to make things better. Rather than focusing on what makes people different, Glassman reminds us that our diversity is the only thing we all have in common. Peacemaking is about healing, wholeness, compassion, and acceptance.

There are "Three Tenets" central to peacemaking, according to Glassman:

1. unknowing,
2. bearing witness,
3. healing ourselves and the universe.

Unknowing

The moment we know something, learning ends. Certainty points us to a narrow view of what should happen, limiting us from seeing greater possibilities. Peacemaking requires that we break through our preconceptions to allow for grace and healing. Asking "why?" is a way of controlling our lives. Instead of asking "why?" peacemakers need to focus on asking, "What can we do?" It really doesn't matter why homelessness exists, only what needs to be done to give people necessary shelter. It doesn't change anything to ask why people use drugs; instead we need to focus on what addicts need to enable them to lead healthy, happy lives.

Peacemaking requires that we work with a foot in two realities: the now and the not yet. Homelessness is an overwhelming problem, but each homeless person is someone with whom we can relate. Peacemakers do not get lost in issues; they are found in relationship with those in need.

I personally believe that the key to systemic change is an understanding of root causes — of knowing why things are the way they are. But often, we expend our energies understanding the cause of a problem to the exclusion of doing anything about it — we offer advice instead of a sandwich. Our commitment to teaching people to fish for themselves instead of giving them fish ignores the immediate problem of starvation. To make peace means to respond to the moment, to the individual, to the need at hand.

What we "know" about punks, the homeless, teenagers, homosexuals, corporate executives, other races, the driver ahead of us, and the stranger right next to us prevents us from learning something new. Peacemakers let go of "knowing" that they might gain wisdom and be open to each moment, each new encounter.

Bearing Witness

Bearing witness is about being in relationship with the people who make us most uncomfortable — homeless, criminal, insane, addicted, or otherwise estranged. Bearing witness is about seeing all of life as a single system, where we are not different from others, but we are one with others. Bearing witness is about living with integrity regardless of the pressures we feel to accommodate culture.

Bearing witness is not passive. It is not merely about seeing, or listening, or believing, or preaching with a prophetic voice. It means leaving the comfort of our daily roles to become one with the suffering of the world. We can be of service by donating money to a good cause or food to a soup kitchen. We can go a deeper step to volunteer our time at a shelter or food pantry. Bearing witness calls us even deeper into connecting with those we serve at the most basic level. We serve the homeless by living out on the streets. We don't just know about people, but we understand them by entering their reality.

Too often, fear, lack of knowledge, or misconceptions prevent us from bearing witness. We have a deep-seated anxiety of doing the wrong thing or of simply not knowing what to do. Glassman assures us that right action ultimately results from right intention. "When we bear witness, when we become the situation — homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death — the right action arises by itself" (p. 84). Glassman leads street retreats in New York City, where retreat participants live as homeless people for a week at a time. Group members sleep on the streets, beg for food and supplies, and have to exist with whatever comes to hand. They have the clothes on their backs and nothing else. To qualify for the retreat, participants must raise $3,000 by asking for it. Glassman believes that asking is one of the hardest fears we have to overcome. Being dependent on others for survival is one of the most important lessons for peacemakers. This is unusual behavior in our culture, but Glassman advises, "behaving according to your norm doesn't cause a shift anyplace." Bearing witness requires that we leave the familiar and comfortable to experience life from a whole new perspective — that of the suffering.

The lessons that most people learn on the street retreats is not one of lack and poverty, but one of abundance. Priorities shift, and material wealth — having and holding — fades into lesser importance. Building relationships, using your mind, seeing options, and seizing opportunities become a way of life. Grasping the concept that homeless people are not inferior or abnormal or aberrant is the critical element in our own healing.

Healing Ourselves and the Universe

The Jewish phrase tikkun olam means "the healing of the universe." The word shalom means "peace," while the word shalem means "whole." Taken together, the work of the peacemaker is to be shalom for the healing of the whole universe. This is not empty rhetoric, but a guiding vision for those who bear witness.

Glassman writes, "If we truly bear witness to the wholeness of life, then we will bear witness not just to our own lives but to the complex functioning of society as a whole" (p. 166). We begin where we can to offer healing and hope. We believe that the entire system benefits when one homeless person is valued, one drug addict is comforted, one AIDS victim is embraced.

Peacemaking is not simply about problem solving — people aren't problems to be solved. Peacemaking moves us beyond the issues to the lives of men, women, and children who suffer and are in need. We challenge the system while caring about the people the system abuses.

Conclusion

Bearing Witness is a reminder of what Christian discipleship really involves. It evokes memories of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, Sister Theresa, and others who have entered into worlds that few of us can even imagine. Those people knew they were where God wanted them to be. It is not enough to care about others without the action of caring for others. It is not enough to give money to solve a problem without getting to know the people the problem affects most deeply. It is never enough to say we have love for another whom we cannot stand to be near. Bearing Witness challenges the church to put faith into action and to practice what it preaches.

Bearing Witness is not a comfortable book, and it will not inspire everyone. In fact, I believe strongly that for some, compassion is a spiritual gift, and those who possess the gift cannot help but be involved. Not every individual would be good engaged in the peacemaking ministries that Glassman describes, but no community of faith is excused from bearing witness in the world. By definition, ours is a ministry of healing, or wholeness, or making peace. As Christian people, we are to be light, and comfort, and mercy, and peace. Bearing Witness is a wake-up call and a valuable book for study, reflection, and discussion.

Click here to see the discussion guide for Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace.

(originally posted August 28, 2000)

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