We've all seen the video clips and news reports of people being taunted, insulted, beat down, told to leave the country, et cetera. And the anger is clearly on both sides. Real winners don't rub people's faces in their loss a some of the Trump supporters have been doing. And real progressives don't attack other progressives out of anger at a differing perspective. Yet those are the things that are happening.
Many of the people expressing anger because others didn't vote the way the Clinton supporters thought they should have lost sight of the basic truth that we are all human and we all err at times.
The troubling part is that many people on both sides of the situation claim to be Christian, yet their actions show that they are Christian in name only.
Perhaps even more to the point of what's happening lately in reference to the Bible, especially for those who call themselves Christian, is the neglect for living by trhe teachings of the man called Jesus the Christ.
I do not call myself Christian. Yet I have studied the Bible for many years, seeking the larger truths within the teachings of the Bible. I herewith offer what I consider to be perhaps the most profound of those teachings:
"For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them." (Luke 6:32)
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?" (Mat. 5:46, 47)
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them..." (Mat 7:12)
"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1 John 4:20)
Since Christianity is an outgrowth of Judaism, let's take a look at that too.
The Jewish Rabbinical teaching in the B'reshith Rabba (Genesis Rabba) teaching reads: "If thou despisest any man, thou despisest God who made man in His image."
I had a discussion with someone on Facebook who insisted that my vote for Jill Stein was actually a vote for Trump. No matter how I explained that this wasn't so, she refused to budge. I don't despise her or hate her because she stubbornly refuses to see someone else's perspective. It's the action and attitude that saddens me, and I sincerely hope that people will wake up and realize the harm they're doing by being hateful and vindictive.
What it comes down to is that we should treat others the way we want to be treated, not the way they treat us, or to despise them because we disagree with them. If we did that, then there would be no chance of harmony, simply because nobody agrees totally with anyone else all the time.
Instead, we must seek to understand each other better and not stick with our prejudices and one-sided perspectives. And we must seek the common ground between us, for only there will we be able to find a way out of this quagmire. Then, and only then, will we be able to move forward as a nation.
Namaste,
Don
©2016
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