Let the truth be told.
Let love be lived.
Let hope be real.
Let peace be everlasting
Steven
Charleston (Spirit Wheel)
To put it simply, I think the challenge in this for me is
not to allow my desire to oppose and dismantle things like prejudice and hate
in this world to cause me to become prejudiced and hateful towards others
myself. Such a difficult challenge.
Ben
Cremer (Blog, Into the Gray)
__________________________________
It is easy to be offended.
I offended, you’re offended,
Wouldn’t we like to be offended now?
We can always find something to be offended by
We don’t even have to look hard
But we do
We might be offended by different things
You might be offended by a moment in the opening ceremony
at the Olympics
I might be offended that you are offended
But we end up in the same place
seeing the “other” as the “other”
Those drag queens are “the other”
That right-wing Christian is “the other”
What is offense, really?
Is it righteous indignation over a value violated?
Is it proper disgust over behaviors vile?
Is it the natural consequence of something or even
someone
who shreds our concept of decency?
Does it arise out of a violation of love?
Perhaps it is anger over things that violate
what we believe is good and right
Perhaps outrage, indignation, offence
are the necessary by-product of empathy
We see the pain of others
We see them treated unjustly, denied justice
marginalized and minimized
And we are offended by those things
that cause another pain.
But there are problems with our outrage
Is what we believe is good and right
truly good and right?
Is our indignation really righteous?
Big question!
Because always, we might be wrong
Unrighteous indignation is horrible
as it all too often arises out of fear
hate
misunderstanding
bad programming (by our religion, or even our secular
culture)
But even if we are right
Even if we are right
our outrage all too often turns in on itself
I see your bias and your hate
And I hate it
And I am biased against you, and people like you
As Tom Lehrer said in his introduction to a song
“I’m sure we all agree that we ought to love one another,
and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human
beings, and I hate people like that!”
We who are against hate, bias, and injustice
Those who are against exclusion
All too often become what we resist
We hate the haters
We exclude those who exclude
We are biased against the biased
But I’m right!
we insist
Hopefully we are.
But still
Jesus said “Love your enemies”
Bless those who curse you
Turn the other cheek
Walk the second mile
From the cross Jesus said “Forgive them”
He saw the humanness of his murderers
saw that they did not understand
him
or his way
It matters HOW we resist
What we do with our outrage
I think we have only one choice
to be so permeated (as Dallas Willard puts it) with love
Perhaps our only choice
through it all, is to resist hate with love
to resist untruth with truth
to combat despair with hope
to resist violence with peace
Perhaps we should go through each day
speaking the mantra of love
“Let the truth be told.
Let love be lived.
Let hope be real.
Let peace be everlasting”
I am not sure I can do it.
But in the power of the Spirit, I can try.
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