This may not be true for everyone, but I have found that when I invest a ridiculous amount of time with someone in disagreement with painstaking honesty until one or both of us either changes our mind or understand each other, it results in a tremendous amount of enlightenment and often full agreement. Like way beyond all believability than what one can imagine when starting the discussion. Very few people in my life seem willing to do this. So few that I sometimes wonder if we were even meant to have this capacity--but being generally optimistic, Id say we are. And seeing the good fruit that comes from it, Id again say we are. It causes me to become very close to the people who do, but those who do not end up becoming distant and withdrawn over time. But, it is quite the investment and there are only so many people in the world that you can possibly spend this time with, so I think it is very understandable when the willingness isnt there and when life constraints make it necessary to pass on the opportunity and decide to agree to disagree. However, there is one demanding condition for that decision to be acceptable: that you do not hold judgement toward one another. And I really mean it! The reason is, by choosing willful ignorance about all the nuances within a persons heart, mind, soul, their experiences and education in life concerning the issues you disagree with them about, you have no way of knowing if your judgements are even valid. Have you ever had a misunderstanding? It could well be that if you did spend a hundred hours to understand them from a place of painstaking honesty that you would fully understand them and quite possibly agree in large ways. You might even learn something that benefits the world. This is what so many Bible toting Christians miss. It is so strange that they spout so many judgements about people when Jesus says not to. Against people they dont care to deeply understand, or defer to impersonal research from experts who they also dont really know very well either. This is such a critical litmus test that measures if you really love people. I dont even know if what I just wrote is explicitly in the Bible, but if you are willing to talk it through with me, you and I would probably come to some neat conclusions.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 02:57:59 +0000
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