Some thoughts on a quiet morning (after cleaning the oven).
There are times we are angry with someone, or we do not like someone, based on some reason – sometimes that person did something to annoy us, sometimes that person may have disappointed us, sometimes it was something they said, sometimes it was how they behaved, and sometimes we don’t like them because of who they are.
We would bear that animosity in us, just like a fetus. We would feed it anger, and one day we give birth to hate.
We would not want to interact with these people at all. Not simply because we do not like them, but the real reason is because we do not want to change our minds. We do not want to forgive, we do not want to be proven wrong, we do not want to see things in another way. We want to hold on to our anger.
i guess that is why so many homophobes avoid having dialogues with TLGB folks, or racists avoid encountering the very people they don’t like. That is behind the hate, the Islamophobia, the violence today. And there are people who would use all this to further their own political and economic interests – who makes the money selling all the weapons? Who benefits when there is instability? Who makes money from all the anti-TLGB rants?
Change can only come when we are open – our hearts, our minds, our arms. When we embrace the encounter with the Other.
i, too, have people i avoid. People who have hurt me, people who have let me down, people who i have yet learned to forgive. Is there someone you are angry with, someone you are not talking to? Is it time to let go and forgive?
i pray, this Advent season, i learn to let go of this brooding negativity, and open my heart to the coming of the Child of Peace and Love.
miak