Gen­tle­ness (Greek, prautes; Antonym: inju­ri­ous and destruc­tive evil)

Most every­one strug­gles with being gen­tle in some way or other. It can some­times be really hard after a long day to find words that are calm­ing and kind, espe­cially with those with whom we are clos­est. In these moments, it can be as sim­ple as the tone or the look that we give that con­veys harsh­ness and dis­tance.  In terms of the Greek word prautes, which we trans­late as gen­tle­ness, it is a very dif­fi­cult word to define because there isn’t a word like it in the Eng­lish lan­guage. The best word to use isn’t actu­ally the word gen­tle­ness, but rather the word meek­ness. How­ever, the prob­lem is that we rarely use this word today in our reg­u­lar con­ver­sa­tions, and there­fore, the mean­ing is lost to us today. Can you remem­ber when the last time you used the word meek—probably never!

An expres­sion we might use for gen­tle­ness or meek­ness is ‘strength under con­trol.’ St. Fran­cis de Sales wrote it another way: “Noth­ing is so strong as gen­tle­ness, noth­ing so gen­tle as real strength.” The Greek writer Aris­to­tle often used the word prautes in his writ­ings and used many words to describe its mean­ing. As you will read below, you need lots of words and phrases to describe this unique Greek word. Here is Aristotle’s description:“The abil­ity to bear reproaches and slights with mod­er­a­tion, and not to embark on revenge quickly, and not to be eas­ily pro­voked to anger, but to be free from bit­ter­ness and con­tentious­ness, hav­ing tran­quil­lity and sta­bil­ity in the spirit.” (On Virtues and Vices) Again, as you can see, it can not always be easy to define the word meek or gentle.

The writ­ers in the New Tes­ta­ment always used this word to exem­plify a gen­uine con­sid­er­a­tion for oth­ers. It’s the per­son who has a dis­po­si­tion that is even-tempered and calm, espe­cially when they have been mis­treated. The per­son who pos­sesses this qual­ity can eas­ily for­give some­one who has wronged them in some way, and at the same time, they know how to man­age their emo­tions well. I like how the the­olo­gian William Bar­clay described the gen­tle person—“he will err on the side of for­give­ness rather than on the side of anger.”

How­ever, gen­tle­ness does not mean that when you are being calm in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion that you can’t ever get angry. Again, Aris­to­tle offers some clues with respect to this; when it applies to anger and gen­tle­ness, it is  “on the right grounds, and against the right per­sons, and in the right man­ner, and at the right moment, and for the right length of time.” (Nico­machean Ethics)  Again, gen­tle­ness is ‘strength under con­trol,’ and some­times we use this trait in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. It’s when some­one con­fronts you in an injus­tice man­ner, and instead of stay­ing silent, you become prautes. It’s when you have been over­looked for some rea­son and instead of hid­ing, you face the sit­u­a­tion with prautes. It’s when  you see some­one being ver­bally attacked and you enter the cir­cum­stance with prautes. As author and pro­fes­sor, Leo Buscaglia wrote some years ago, “Only the weak are cruel. Gen­tle­ness can only be expected from the strong.”  Gen­tle­ness does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that you should remain silent in a try­ing cir­cum­stance; in some instances, you must move into the hurt­ful sit­u­a­tion and gen­tly cor­rect or change what has been done to you or to some­one else.

Ques­tions you can ask your­self: how gen­tle are you espe­cially when some­one has upset you or “it just isn’t your day?” When you are in an argu­ment, do you use harsh or gen­tle words? With this, while you may be pas­sion­ate about a given issue, how con­trolled are you when you speak? In respect to your emo­tions, how even-tempered are you? Do you con­trol your emo­tions or do they con­trol you? How con­sid­er­ate are you of oth­ers and their sen­si­tiv­i­ties and feel­ings, or are you a rag­ing bull in a china shop with oth­ers? When you face a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion do you typ­i­cally counter with hurt­ful words or do you remain silent and hide from the obvi­ous prob­lems? In what ways do you need to learn how to use prautes to enter argu­ments and prob­lems in your rela­tion­ships? What do you need to change in your life to become a gen­tle person?