How to love your neighbor...
Tue 05 November 2024
...in the midst of... all this
You're driving to work and you see them. A bunch of people holding up signs in favor of the human being (if they can be truly described as such!) that you loathe the most on the entire earth.
Your blood boils.
You air out your middle finger.
You probably honk.
Your windshield fogs up under a fusillade of swear words.
Relatable?
Nearly a daily occurrence, you say! Oh my!
A better way
"But R.L.," you protest, "we gotta oppose these crazy people! This has gone on too far! It has to stop!"
Hmm... Well...
I am partial to justice. And I'm not a fan of nazis or their apologists, in any country or decade.
But this post isn't about that. I'm not telling you not to fight for what you think is just and right. I'm not telling you not to oppose wickedness as you see it manifest around you or on the national stage.
What I would like to say is...
The person holding up the sign that made your blood boil might actually be worth something more than mere fodder for ideological warfare.
S/he might actually have an intrinsic value that is equal to yours.
And they might actually merit as much forbearance and mercy as you did in your own wayward, foolish moments.
Of course, the danger of holding up a sign is that you become a sign. Your life and being gets flattened to the same thickness as the card stock you're holding up, and you no longer mean anything more than the slogans you've given your agency to emblazon on someone's retinas.
Sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes there is a sentence or even a single word that you feel so strongly about that you're willing to become it. I've been there. I've held up a sign or two. A word or two. I felt extremely passionately about it. I was certain I was right.
Do you know what happened? I grew up. I grew out of that fanaticism. If I had been hated on by someone with more wisdom than me at that time, maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe I would've entrenched even deeper. Maybe I would've avoided all of the wonderful life experiences that opened me up to learn more about life, people, and reality and instead remained a closed-minded person.
Is seeing the person holding up the sign that you hate worth keeping them there in that pitiable state? Or can you begin to see the humanity in others?
Can I?
Can we learn to love, or will we fight and kill over and over until we don't know what we're fighting for?
Your own children are watching. Ok fine, you don't have kids. Your nieces and nephews, then. Your cousins. Your friends' kids. Someone smaller than you that you care about. Someone who still has a bit of innocence that hasn't been effaced by the gaping chasm of existential dread we've all been peering into for the past few years.
They're looking to you. They're looking to you to neither compromise truth for comfort, nor live a life that is less than humane.
And I think they can count on you.
Category: Life Tagged: Beauty Ethics Life Non-religious post Non-technical post Philosophy WritingMonth