Greetings Dear Reader,
On Thursday last week a friend told me that she feels like nobody
really likes her. I reminded her that I
did like her and that I have a choice about it. Her response was that I like everyone. I am required to love everyone but not to
like everyone.
I am supposed to be kind to all humans. I think that people confuse kindness with
approval, agreement, and friendship. I
try to be friendly to everyone. I will
be friends with almost anyone who needs a friend. I can disagree with you on most things and
still be your friend.
The difficulty is that we are forgetting that there will be
fellow travelers that we do not like. As
long as it is not based on some rejection of the person it is allowable to dislike
someone. I find it difficult to find
people to dislike when it is not my own problem. When I look at the genuine reasons for my
dislike they are almost always based on my own preferences or prejudices.
We form our opinions of people based on our standards. If, however, we are obedient to the command
to love everyone, it becomes difficult to justify dislike. There it is.
We have to justify our dislike of our fellow travelers. We have to have reasons that almost always
turn out to be some social choice that we find unpleasant.
I never know their whole story. I never know what my kindness and compassion toward
someone can unveil. Not everyone is “likeable”
by our standards. If we remove that filter
we may find more in common than we realize.
No matter how I feel I am obligated to treat everyone with
kindness.
I have often found great beauty in the souls of those who I
thought I did not like. Once I set aside
my own prejudices to walk with them a bit I found common footing. If I am going to love everyone and be kind to
them, I must look past my own preferences to the unique gift that everyone is
to the world. Each fellow traveler has
something to teach me if I clear space to learn. I have a choice about who I like. I must always choose wisely.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer
who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home
owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Contact for Aramis
Thorn:
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