Live and let live
12 January 2010
I was just thinking about a friend of mine who holds some rigid thoughts and my conclusion is to not bring up topics that set him in motion….i.e. Hollywood, the military, faith of any kind, politics.
Homosexual rights would probably send him to the moon too. After all, as my friend Con Hee pointed out to me “Women don’t do women and men don’t do men, it says so right in the bible.”
My biggest obstruction from being convinced about that thinking is “Well they do and they are. Now what?” I never have been given a solution that sounds workable to me on that.
So I retreat to the peaceful thoughts I hold dear in my mind and that is, once again…”Live and let live.” It is not my business to correct the world of adults about the choices they are making. That’s the business of God. I am not worrying about it. I am, however, determined to accommodate different attitudes, values and beliefs into that peaceful fabric I call life. Like it or not we all have a thread to weave into the fabric. So we might as well all do our part to keep it strong, which means tolerance and respect for other people’s thoughts.
Only when someone’s behavior threatens me do I rise up and be accountable for what I have to say and that is usually something linked to tolerance and respect; in short being sensitive given what you know the other person is thinking. Don’t incite riots. Don’t deliberately try to hurt other people.
As long as what they are doing does not threaten my serenity, I really don’t care. But when religion and politics fire up, it’s a dangerous mix because neither subject is tolerant of what the other is up to doing. My classic response usually says something like, “I’ve got to go now. Have a wonderful day.” And then I get far far away.
On a national scale, I support war when it infringes on the equal rights of other peoples. But to go after Saddam when Al Qaeda attacked us was the biggest mistake ever. It allowed that group to recruit more people into their fold and continue their dirty work based upon their sense of righteous faith.
Curiously that part has been going on for centuries over there. When we went to Turkey we were told of the Muslims who attacked the Christians just because they believed something different. They didn’t believe in deities, so they used rocks and pelted out the eyes of images whenever they found them in churches.
When we went to Egypt, the tour guide told us it was the Christians that defaced the carvings on the ancient temples. I saw it differently. It was the Muslims who were at it again because they have this thing about eyes being the source of all things evil; hence the blue”evil eye”. Notice it is not brown? My conclusion is there must be a lot of uninformed Muslims out there for them to do what they are doing, which, coincidently, is against the Koran and favor of Allah.
If you don’t like Hollywood movies, don’t pay to see them. It’s that simple. There are plenty of other movies out there for you to see and talk intelligently about AND that are more worthy of your sacred time alone in thought.
In the end, setting an example is always the best teacher, in my opinion. It’s like natural healing. It takes longer to affect any change in the quality of life, but it has fewer side effects.
How’s my theology lesson settling in with you???
Har har. Anyway it’s fun to talk about, you know.
Best.
commenting closed for this article