I have known a lot of really good people over the years. I have also known even more mostly good people. I have also known a few really bad people. And before you start saying, “You shouldn’t judge people as bad!”, I want to remind you that Jesus didn’t say we couldn’t judge; what He said was that the judgment we make is the judgment we will receive. And – all three of those statements were judgments, not just the last. Judgments come in all shapes and forms. Of course, there is no way we can know what is going on inside someone’s head and heart, no matter how good or bad they seem. There’s a lot of baggage in every person’s history, and that baggage plays itself out differently for each one of us.
If your baseline is hate – if your go-to response is violence and retribution and suffering – this is a very different concern. When I see hateful acts or hear hateful rhetoric, I immediately ask myself why. Why do some people respond to difference with acceptance while others respond with anger? Why do some people automatically want to punish while others want to understand? All of us are products of nature and nurture, so I get that we are often wired to respond in certain ways that we don’t understand, and we are taught to either love or hate. Every single one of us is made this way, and every single one of us can change. We can fight the knee-jerk responses that are hurtful and damaging, and we can work on the false lessons we have learned. When we refuse to move from hate and the desire to hurt others, however, we define ourselves as proponents of all that is wrong in the world. We can change; we just don’t want to.
Bigotry and cruelty and racism are choices we make. So are acceptance and inclusion and understanding. Some of us have more baggage to sort through than others do, and I would never claim that changing one’s baseline is easy. Some people have had better upbringings than others – some people seem to be naturally kinder. If we were all really good to start, we wouldn’t need religious guidance to be better. But nobody is perfectly kind and caring; we all need to get better. If your baseline – your go-to – is hate, I believe you can change, just like I believe I can change. It just takes discernment, grit, and commitment. Which all of us can do. We just have to choose love over hate.
Prayer – Holy God, we are grateful for the freedom You offer each one of us. Help us to choose good over evil. Amen.
Today’s art is “Yin-Yang” by Chirila Corina.