My Hope is Strong

If you can not get past first impressions, and you don't even have the common courtesy to offer me some of your time for a conversation; then I don't care about you, honestly I don't. But I still want you to be blessed and successful because my happiness depends on you, it really does. I want to have the opportunity to meet absolutely everyone and have a friendly conversation, nothing would bring me more joy. I want to hear you share the stories of your life, I want to get to know you personally, I want a relationship. And this relationship is truely inevitable because we are all companions within the eternal kingdom; In fact some kind of relationship exists between us wether we would choose it or not. Absolutely everybody in the world bears some kind of family relationship to absolutely everybody else. For any two living persons that we can point to, there will always always be some common ancester. This will be true wether you believe in evolutionary science, or the genesis story of creation - both stories draw to the same conclusion. And while the matter has become undenialble fact, its the hardest thing in the world to get other people to agree with; people are living thier lives in denial. And since this is true we hate the people who are different from ourselves, we love the people who are most like us. We will always share certain interests with others, and there will always be other people with whom we want no personal involvement. Some people there will always be in the world to behave in opposition to my own personal interests, because of the behaviour of some people life can be made so much more risky. But I beleive that we all share a common desire for our own comfort at least if not peace, life on Earth does not need to be so much of a struggle! Human life is played very much like a big competitive game, everybody is keeping score, we are constantly comparing ourselves to the people around us. It is not good enough to have some personal accomplishments, our accomplishments need to be as good or better than the accomplishments of our peers. And after all has been said or done, we are all equals; no one person is more or less important than another person. Clearly we can be un-equal in so many different ways. Some people are more or less educated; some people are more or less intelligent; some people have more or less physical endurance; some people are faster or stronger; and some people are more or less wealthy. Its very easy to see how we are all different, and its clear that each person is defined by certain personal accomplishments, and we do not all have the same accomplishments in life. Even though we can be un-equal in so many different ways, its still not possible that one person can be more or less important than another, in this respect we are absolutely equal.

My hope that every human being is capable of becomeing mature and wise is the only reason that I have to exercise patience and tollerance. And I do honestly believe that even insanity can be overcome in due course of time. Our world is in dire need of maturity; intellectual maturity and more importantly, emotional maturity. And I would qualify that need in one word, "Civility." The people need to learn civility, and good manors have much to do with civility. Without some measure of civility we are not civilized; it is not good enough to observe that we are city dwellers, living in a city is no gaurentee of civilization. And Human Nature being what it is, we all share a common and fundamental need for companionship. Modern society is suffering for a lack of social sensibility, every person needs to be socialized. No person should be deprived of a good friendship. It is absolutely detrimental to human developement and physical well-being to go un-socialized within the community. None-the-less certain people will fail to compete in the venue of friendship, and become shunned. And so long as people play life as a competitive game, there will always be some people who are unable to compete on our terms.

It is easy to see how the honorable man is deserving of our respect, but what is respect if not dignified treatment? And if you want to believe in 'Basic Human Dignity' as any kind of principle that elevates us above the animal kingdom, then you must must must be willing to show that dignity to absolutely everyone. The criminal is clearly undeserving, they have shown the community some behaviour which is not justifiable. We must somehow be brought into the agreement that all human behaviour is somehow justifiable, truely a fair argument can be made in support of that statement. Killing is Murder, irregaurdless of your cause; it is either justifiable under every condition or else it may never be considered justifiable, you absolutely can not have the matter both ways just as it pleases you. Killing in self-defense is often viewed as justifiable in our modern world, and such views are well supported by Old Testament Biblical philosophy. Revenge is a fair motivation for us to act upon, the victims of a crime deserve closure we say. But the only thing that will ever make a difference is for the perpetrator of a crime to see the victim as another human being. And for that cause to be best served, simple conversation is all that should be required.

Therefore I am desireing of the promise of a ressurection. The promise of a ressurection to our immortality is the ultimate good IMHO. When you are made to live upon this Earth again; and as one human being among 14 billion or so people, you will finally come to appreciate your true importance. When there is never again the possibility of excuseing ourselves from having a conversation by saying that, "We don't have the time," the people can not fail to grow wise. Jesus taught the world a principle of forgiveness, and I do believe that its possible to be forgiven, but we may not be given to forget. We must be able to admit to the things we have done in life, you must tell your story and be judged 14 billion times over. Yes forgiveness is a possibility but judgement is a certainty! And our forgiveness can never be complete unless we are able to forgive ourselves; and we may only be able to forgive ourselves by learning to forgive others as well.

But my HOPE is strong, maturity is a possibility.