There is a video floating about the internet currently of a question and answer session given by Sir Patrick Stewart.
This man has a tender place in my childhood and also my teenage years first having been Captain Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek episodes and movies I watched with my father and then Professor Charles Xavier in X-Men which has been a beloved story line to me since I first watched the cartoon episodes and later on the movies.
Of course, I have respect for him as an actor and he is one of those that I aspire to be at least worthy to act alongside but with this video that has been going around, my initial respect and admiration turn to that love that one usually expresses toward the patrons of one's family (and within the Church, the prophet and apostles that we grow up listening to and receiving counsel from during General Conference every six months).
If any one reading this has not watched it yet, I would really recommend it because I know I won't do it justice in this blog response.
A young woman asks Stewart about what he feels his greatest work has been aside from acting has been but not until after she admits to having a similar childhood to his. Domestic violence is what they had in common and the young woman admitted to having watched another interview Stewart had been in where he spoke of the domestic violence directed from his father to his mother but he also expressed how he has moved past it and forgiven his father.
This interview had helped this young woman more than Stewart might have ever known had she not attended the question and answer session and been courageous enough to share a piece of her vulnerable heart in that audience.
Stewart spoke of not one but two organizations that he is a part of in Britain. One being called Refuge which is just that, an organization where victims of domestic violence, particularly women and children, can go to safe houses where they can truly feel safe and secure for perhaps the first time in years or even their lives. He spoke of how he does this work in the name of his mother. He couldn't help her "then" but he can help her "now". So, by this point in his answer, one who had never heard of his childhood might call his father a villain, a coward.
He continued to speak of his father who had served in France during a war in the 1940's. Upon his return he had developed "shell shock", post-traumatic stress which starting with WWII was referred to as combat stress reaction. It would seem that those with this physical or psychological injury would oft times not be able to reason and in some cases lose their self-control--in some cases resulting in domestic violence. Back in the 1940's no one knew how to treat this condition and thus soldiers with this problem were often told to buck up and be a man.
However, now we know of ways to help reduce the effects of this condition and that leads to the second organization that Stewart is a part of: Combat Stress. This, he says, he does in the name of his father.
How beautiful! How courageous and strong. To be able to forgive one's father and even do something to help those who have been diagnosed with the same condition. How interesting it is to see people working to break the cycle from both ends: to treat those who might start domestic violence and then to also take care of, support, and heal those who have been on the receiving end so that they can grow and continue on with life knowing that what happened to them was not right and thus help them to know that you can live a life without that violence. To be promoters of peace instead of instigators of hurt and hate.
On the other hand, how important it was for Sir Patrick Stewart to say that yes he had forgiven his father but it should not be dismissed simply because he was "ill" as some would refer to it. It is up to men, he said, to protect and guard the women.
Our safety is most often in their hands.
As his closing thought on the subject, he mentioned hearing the doctors and ambulance operators tell his mom, "Mrs. Stewart, you must have done something to provoke him." Or in other words, the reason her husband had acted out in violence was all her fault.
Wrong.
Violence is NEVER the choice men should make.
So in closing of my thoughts, it makes me curious. When did Stewart realize that what the paramedics were saying was wrong? There is an innate truth within each of us. That is why when people say things that we strongly agree with, it not only resonates in our minds but in our hearts and souls as well. Same with those things that we strongly disagree with. Whenever I hear something that goes against my innate truth, my very soul recoils from it and the light of truth comes forth to buoy my heart and spirit with at least the feeling of those things that are true.
It also brings me the warm feeling of gratitude and love I have for my father and how he has treated me since I was very young. I know there are times when I have frustrated him, gone against his wishes, but not once has he abused me. And always, after scolding, there has always, always, ALWAYS been an increase of love.
In Section 121 of the Doctrine and Covenants (a set of scripture read within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) verse 43 reads: "Reproving betimes with sharpness...then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy."
I know this to be true. I am also a firm believer in the notion that hate only breeds hate and that is why there must be a leaven of love to protect those who have experienced so much hurt, hate and rejection by the forces of the world around them.
If we can show forth love and have the strength to forgive one another and learn where our hands can lend strength and protect those in harm's way, how much of an influence for good can we be in the time to come?
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