We Are But a Moment's Sunlight

we humans are proficient at creating "others" to blame for what's wrong in the world.  for me, the others are those with whom i disagree politically, those blankety-blank right-wingers.  why can't they see that they are wrong and that those who agree with me are right?  it's easy to see republicans and their allies as the enemies.  i can cry in righteous indignation about their indifference to the poor, their hatred of immigrants, their desire to protect the rich at the expense of the rest of society, their anti-democratic embrace of dictators and misogynists, and a multitude of other mistaken positions that they embrace.

i believe i'm right in opposing them in every way i can but i'm not right in failing to see them as people more like me than different from me.  we christians have a saying: love the sinner, hate the sin.  that cliche has some truth in it, but it is most frequently a way of defending hatred that is directed more at the person than at their ideas and the actions that flow from them.  bigots use this bromide against the lgbtq community.  it's too easy to pretend that we can get beyond our hatred of a particular point-of-view or life-stlye to see the person who embraces it as worthy of love and compassion.  all too often we hate "the sinner" as much as we hate what we view as "the sin."

the problem is to figure out a way to put myself in the shoes of another with whom i disagree strongly.  i don't want to have compassion for them.  after all, they are so different, so wrong that they don't deserve my concern.  nevertheless, they are human, just as i am.  i don't know the past experiences that have brought them to embrace an ideology that is repugnant to me.  i can't explain or understand why they believe as they do.  do they crave power?  is their seeming indifference to the suffering of others a way of justifying their desires for enriching themselves?  perhaps these things are true of them or maybe they honestly believe that the liberal philosophy that those of us on the left promote corrupts society by making people dependent on government assistance rather than earning an honest living. 

i don't want to think that these "others" could be sincere in the point-of-view they preach, much less contemplate the possibility that there could be some truth in what they say.  instead, i villainize them so that i won't feel compelled to have compassion for them.  if i make them the enemy, i don't have to engage with them or see them as fellow sufferers.  i can tell myself that they are so different from me that i am excused from viewing our common humanity.  all of us tend to look for others that we can blame for the suffering we endure and the shared hurts of society.  what we must try to avoid is this scapegoating that so easily takes root in our minds.

may i learn to see the humanity of another first.  may i avoid labeling and stereotyping those with whom i disagree.  may i love without condition, even when the object of that love is not so easy to love.  may i defend my beliefs without denigrating those with whom i disagree.  may my heart be filled with lovingkindness and compassion for all, as i seek to get past the idea of creating "others" who are unworthy.  shalom.