282Where’s the Love?
posted by Jeffrey on March 13th, 2007
I tend to be a very judgmental person. There, I said it. I’m not proud of this fact, but it’s true. I often make judgments about people based on what I think I see.
The result, they confirm whatever it is I thought I saw. Have you ever done that? Of course you have, we all have. Someone rolls up in a mickey-moused up honda civic, hat on sideways, loud music polluting the air immediately surrounding the vehicle and what do we think?
I’m sure it is something to the effect of, “what a wannabe ghetto fab punk.”
The result of that personification is whatever you just projected. We see what we want to see. What might have happened if the same person pulled up beside me at a stoplight and I thought to myself, “man, that guy really takes joy in expressing himself; it looks like he put a lot of work into that car.”
I would then cease to see him as a ghetto fab punk, and would see the good — or if you prefer, the love — in him.
Do you think “Christians” simply get what they look for?
Christians believe that they “have” something that everyone else “needs”. The result, they see needy people. They believe that they are “saved” and there are many others who are “lost”. The result, they see people who are lost.
What would happen if we saw the Love of God in everyone?
The argument could be made that such is not reality, but simply what I choose to see. However, perhaps there is more to this topic than meets the eye. Not all personifications may be valid.
I dare say that if I choose to see the Love of God within every individual I meet, that I will see anything else but such. On the other hand, if I try to see someone who is “lost” in someone who is “Love”, that love will overwhelm my attempted perception of lostness.
What might that mean, I wonder?
Technorati Tags: love, spirituality, the secret, Jeffrey Davis
001: Ivy,
March 13th, 2007 at 9:18 pmI think you’re onto a really big idea here. If only we could all see people as people worthy of our time, love, and kindness, that would certainly change the world.
002: Jeffrey,
March 13th, 2007 at 10:15 pmyes, i think it would too ivy.
too bad we concern ourselves so with dividing people into their prospective “camps” of us and them, liberals and conservatives, christians and non-christians, etc.
I wonder what could happen if we all pulled our heads out of our own asses long enough to LOVE…
003: Bits and bobs « the badbadivy experience,
March 14th, 2007 at 6:14 pm[…] 4. If you haven’t read Jeffrey’s fab post, you should. And it made me think of something only slightly related. Every time I see a Toyota van, I think “terrorist mobile”. I don’t know why, really. I see a van like that and I think “shit, terrorists!” I was thinking perhaps it was because the “Libyan” terrorists in the movie Back to the Future drove a van like that- but no, I just looked it up. They drove an old VW van. And I don’t think “terrorist mobile” when I see an old VW van, I think “hippie mobile”. I need to get over my vehicular prejudices. […]
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