How Civil Disobedience Safeguards Freedom and Prevents Tyranny

I am sitting here listening and thinking ‘how true, how true’. But then I look back on times I have stuck my neck out to disobey, usually for wrongs done to someone else, and I think ‘this little intellectual vignette doesn’t do the act of disobedience justice.’ The Bible says that it is right to hate evil and this is the crux of civil or individual acts of disobedience. When the taste of evil rises up in one’s mouth and cannot be choked back down, then the only true response is to hate the evil with every fiber of one’s being and begin to scream. Stand up and declare, “enough!”. That given a choice between proceeding as usual and living with evil even one more second, is no choice at all. The Bible often defines this state of growing intolerance for evil as travailing as a woman giving birth. In most people’s minds travailing is a passive act of endurance and moaning, however, as a mother I would offer another visualization of travailing that directly pertains to gathering strength for civil disobedience. In about the 8th month a woman suddenly realizes that the ‘baby’ inside of her Has to come out! And that the only way it can come out of her is at great expense to her physically, mentally and spiritually. There is no ambiguity for a woman about to give birth. None. There is no place for self-conscious vanity, pride, or fear. When the pains begin, a woman’s laser focus is on pushing that thing out! It has to be done! Her life and the life of the child depend upon her commitment and fortitude. It’s foot to the floor. balls to the wall, eating the worm, and whatever other visual helps you understand that when we are called to travail it is a bloodletting. People who stand up in civil disobedience will travail. God help them! They will travail. Somehow the well-modulated voice and the art didn’t capture the grit of civil disobedience as I have known it.