how to be despicable

“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”

 James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

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I sometimes believe that when we are at our worst

Is when we feel our best

And that when we are at our best, is when we feel the worst

Because too often, our peace comes at a terrible cost

It comes when we close our eyes

Close our minds

Close our hearts

It comes when we neglect

Or worse

When we are contemptuous of other people’s pain

When in order to justify it

To justify our refusal to respond to it

we choose to believe they earned it

They deserve it

And then we are despicable

And there are a million ways to be despicable

We can choose the way of hate and fear

We can choose the way of abusive power

And obscene wealth

We can choose to judge

Choose to exclude

But the worst thing we do

Is to refuse to see that person in front of us

We just don’t see them

We see them as colored

Or Alien

We see them as drunks or addicts

As mistakes

And felons

But we don’t see them as people

We don’t value them

And we don’t feel their pain

And it is in that moment

When the image of God in us becomes blurred

Hideously vague

For the bottom line of Jesus birth, life and death is this

God always feels and respects our pain

No matter what

Even the pain of a thief on a cross

Who from a human perspective, totally deserved what he got

Today,

You will be with me

In Paradise