Rage Can Be Holy, Too

On Harm, Accountability, and Our Responsibility to One Another

The allegations surrounding the Cornell Seven should disturb us. Rage and disgust in the face of sexual violence are not failures of compassion. They can be signs that our moral compass is still working.

Our concern must extend beyond individual actions to the cultures and systems that allow such harm to happen—the protection of privilege, the misuse of power, the silence of bystanders, and institutions tempted to protect themselves rather than vulnerable people. Compassion without accountability becomes sentimentality. When harm is established, there must be consequences, truth-telling, responsibility, and repair.

Spirituality, at its best, does not ask us to float serenely above the suffering of the world. It asks us to enter it, to stand with those who have been harmed, to hold people and institutions accountable, and to change the conditions that allowed the harm in the first place.

And for those of us who seek to live a spiritual life, this matters deeply. The spiritual path calls us toward those who have been wounded, pushed aside, or denied their dignity—and asks us to confront the forces that diminish them. Spirituality cannot simply be about cultivating inner peace or holding beautiful ideas. It must take flesh in how we live: standing close to the wounded, speaking when silence protects harm, holding power accountable, and helping create a world in which the sacredness of every human being is honored.