"if we claim to respect other people’s religions, then shouldn’t we be offering them support and encouragement since it’s apparent that they were a little off on their calculations? Not picking on them as if to prove that we're better than they are"
Which I thought was a very good statement and agreed with, and told him I thought it well said.
It seems this perspective is foolish, or at the very least; naive. Instead I should simply shut the hell up and watch as someone intellectually bullies someone else since they have freedom of speech. Interestingly some of these comments came from a person I know is a parent of a child who was bullied terribly and were very indignant about the situation at the time.
Oh sure, maybe it's just good natured, light hearted ribbing to this person. But I wonder, when the shoe was on a different foot was the perspective the same?
I walk through this world bemused often at the casual cruelty leveled in the guise of light heartedness; the disrespect of each other that only seems to get worse as we become mired further in the illusion that we are separate and different from one another. And, I can't help but wonder that this isn't at the heart of why we seem to have such a problem getting along.
Perhaps I am just getting over reactive. But what if I'm not? What if just for a moment you could look at another person whose position, and perspective and whole paradigm was incomprehensible to you and still saw a human being, with a human's frailty of feelings. What if you could look into that person's eyes, without their mask, without their wall of separateness and see the hurt there as your good natured jibe struck home? Would you be so quick then to say that it was naive or foolish to want to offer them a little compassion for where they are at right now? How funny then would the joke be?
And this, my heart, is just one of the many reasons that I love you so.
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