Sunday Wisdom

From One Mountain, Many Paths
An American Freemason Speaks Out for Peace

by Dr. Patrick Swift
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Consider a neighbor's loss as if it were your own.

T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien, Adapted



We love him, because he first loved us.

For those who say, I love God, and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars: for those that do not love a brother or a sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have for him is this; those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

I John 4:20

So, what we (I) need to do is get hate out of our (my) heart. I usually do pretty good with this and try to see the good in everyone. Sometimes I just give up on a person. I try not to do that. Sometimes even when I have been deeply hurt I will continue to try. I generally screw up but I try. However I, being human, fall short. There are a (very) few people who I just do not like. I suppose hate is a little to strong a word to use in this context because (for the most part with one exception) I do not wish them harm but by no means do I love them.

In some Masonic groups I had to promise that if someone had wronged me and came to me with a sincere desire to heal the rift that I would accept that. I don't have any hope that the few people that I don't like will ever do that because they don't like me so I don't really feel that I will ever have to break my obligation. I would also have to have more than verbal proof that they wanted me for a friend - so, as I said I am not really worried about having to live up to that high standard. But I probably would try. It is just much easier for me to "put them on a shelf" - in a box in a much bigger box and never open those boxes - What I know I do need to do is stop obsessing about them. I am past the hurt (for the most part) and I don't wish them harm so I imagine that I partially meet the standard of the commandment from I John. But I can't say that I love them. I shall try to do better.

The Bible commentary on this verse says:

We cannot be right with God unless we are also right with men. Make peace quickly; do not let the sun go down on your wrath (Ephesians 4:26). Hatred is sin, and sin separates us from God.

Someone once accused me of "hating" someone. I actually didn't. I just decided that I was not going to put up with her hypocrisy any longer. You see this person was talking to me to my face as if she were my friend. And then she would talk "about" me behind my back and the report that came to me was - "I just don't understand how E can be so nice to you to your face and then say so many awful things about you behind your back." I had been in the hospital with surgery and was not feeling good at all when E telephoned me to ask me how I felt. - I was not kind and loving (but neither was I a hypocrite) - I said "You know E, I have been hearing what you are saying about me behind my back and I have no interest whatsoever in anything you may have to say." I then hung up the phone and put her out of my life.

In retrospect I am not sure it was my finest hour but I was feeling down. One reason I did not have a retirement party when I retired was because this person had spread lies about me and how I wasn't able to work. I had a life-threatening illness and when I went back to work I felt the difference in the building. I did not feel the principal was supportive and some of the parents were very negative. They said things which were not true and which I figured out later had come from E. It was just not the same. Since I was eligible for early retirement I took it and six months later I was back in the hospital again and this is when I got the phone call referenced above. Not my finest hour as I said but why pretend? I really did not want this person in my life. There have been others but she was the most egregious. And now I am somewhat past it.

But the whole point of this introspection is that I do not meet my own standard. I guess none of us really do. All we can do is try. So once again I am writing on this *####%%** Blog as if I wrote the scriptures. I don't really think so. I am just using it once again to look at myself and try to figure out some things. I never claimed to be a nice person. I do try but I fall short. - That of course is what it is all about. Human existence always "falls short" and I personally feel that "as long as we keep the HIGH GOAL before us" we are moving in the right direction.

Hang in there. ARTYAL, Hugs, j