If you want to require airport level screening to allow public restroom use, fine by me. If you don't care if we all have the creepy "unisex" bathroom rules in every public restroom, fine by me. Whatever. If I argue against one side, the other side gets to ignore and chastise me. Because that is what discourse has become now, opportunities to demean and denigrate. I will even stipulate, my fine sense of denigration has flowed forth in full rage.
If you want to make certain that we have clean water long after the cockroaches have ascended to apex predator status, or are cool with dumping liquid mercury in all of our aquifers, fine by me.
If you want to make sure anyone with measurable natural melatonin ends up in prison by 16, or you want to make even the act of noticing melatonin concentration a federal offense, fine by me.
If you are convinced that homosexuality is spread by knowing it exists, or that we would all be better off with a little more gay, fine by me.
If you think every cop is a completely fair and incapable of bad judgement and racial bias, or you think every cop is issued Klan membership with the badge, fine by me.
If you are certain the Japanese and Russians are targeting the gay whales just for cruelty, or you think they are all just creepy for hunting at all, fine by me.
It is not that it is not important. Both extremes are equally worthy of ridicule and derision. It is that important.
But, no one seems to understand that good and decent people can disagree with them. America has lost the realization that others can be intelligent, considered and worthwhile human beings, even if they do not have the exact same ideological core and dogma. And that is not a disease impacting only one side of the spectrum, or one religious outlook, or one race. It is a pandemic, and all of us are exposed, and all of us are suffering from the disease at some level.
If you have read Stephen King's novel, The Stand, you are familiar with Captain Trips. Steve was right, he just got the symptoms wrong. Instead of the tube neck and gargling, choking death he described, it is actually a prolonged living with rabid disdain.
Again, I am not immune, nor do I claim to have never been in full course of all symptoms. But, I got some healing. I may have stumbled on a treatment. I combined two things in the Bible, (yes, that book, even if you don't believe, I promise these will not infect you with incurable paranoia or a need for wearing prairie dresses and bowl haircuts).
First, chronologically, is Proverbs 17:28. "Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues." (Note, you do not become wise, you are still a fool. People just have nothing to prove it or reinforce it.)
Second, add John 13:34. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (Note, you do not have to be good or less whatever thing gives you pride, you just have to love others. Not in that way, get you mind out of the gutter, we are talking about religious theories here. I know, but, try, really hard.)
So, if you can keep from confirming whatever level of foolishness people suspect you possess; and then, really do the deed and just love them, regardless of whatever level of foolishness they confirm to you; a couple of things happen.
First, it is fine. Of course, the situation basically remains unchanged, but the atmosphere and rhetoric tone down, and some people even start listening and trying to understand each other. So, it is fine, honestly. Going the other way just makes sure we drive the car off the road together.
Second, this only comes by me. I don't need any input from anyone else to do these things. I only need to think about how it will sound before I say it. Then, I have to decide to love that other person, regardless or especially. We all have those folks we love, regardless (and we have to because of what they say and do.) And we all have those folks we love especially (because they really do and say the stuff we know to be right and true, in our minds, which make it right period.) Treat them both the same and feel the same love for both.
I dare you, give this a try. Of course, really, really bad candidates will still populate the political process. Of course, there will still be crime, still be racism, still be classism, still be all that. Of course, the most important everything's will still hang in the balance.
The difference will be in you. The difference is that not only can you stand to hear about it, you also begin to be able to stay out of it. I don't mean ignore it and drop out of the process. But, you can keep QUIET, think about it for yourself, and then do whatever your conscience urges you to do. Since you do not speak about it, you gain the ability to interact with issues and situations based on conscience and consequence. And, you still get to hang with all those folks you really like to have beer with, but can't stand to talk politics with. (Hey, there are always the Baltimore Orioles to talk about, just saying.)
You also really start to enjoy those folks. You get less concerned about ALL their tattoos, and the misspelling and poor grammar that is rampant in tattoos. You get less concerned about the evidence of the botox. You get less concerned about the church they go to. You get less concerned about the headgear, veil, shoes, whatever. If you can get yourself to love the person, regardless of the sin, life becomes much more pleasant.
No, it is not perfect. No, it will not be permanent and without pause. Yes, there will be people that you just can't love. (Leave them be, pray, meditate, whatever you do over it, and don't let it consume you.) Yes, there will be situations that make you speak out. (Say it without curse words, without names and without disrespect, and then go back to Proverbs 17:28.)
This is not the cure for what is wrong with the world. But, I have discovered that it does allow me the opportunity to live in a world dying for a cure, without feeling like I am infected and dying too. It allows me to find humor in what happens, because the ridiculous is funny, and we are all ridiculous. It allows me to pray humbly, because I realize it could have been me that said that, a couple of days ago when I was really mad about it, but I didn't. I am not smarter, I just have earned breathing space to learn.
So, let me say nothing further today, except that I love you all, really, I mean that with all I am.
GLYASDI
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