Have you ever had this happen? You are driving down the road when you notice the car in front of you. More specifically, you notice some of the stickers that are on the car. “Vote for _______!” “I support _______.” “I’m a _________ and I vote.” I know it happens to me. I notice a bumper sticker and then I immediately think, “Oh, they support this or that. Well, they’re just an asshole.”
It is such a struggle for me not to put people into preconceived slots. If they are of this faith group. If they voted for that person. If they patronize that business. The “ifs” could go on. I am so tempted to think that I can know all I need to know about a person from just from knowing a very few limited things about them.
But, the truth is, it is far more complicated than that. Someone could easily look at the fact that I am a white male, born and raised in the last 2 capitals of the Confederacy, a former U.
S. Marine, trained and ordained as a Southern Baptist pastor, and, from that limited information, make a lot of assumptions about me that would be totally wrong. It is true that the ideas, beliefs, moral judgments, and other viewpoints and perspectives that I held in the past are now ones that I find abhorrent and reject completely.
In short, who I am today is not who I was yesterday nor is it who I will be tomorrow. I believe the same is true of all people. I am striving to be a better person than what I have been. I believe all of us would like to do the same. Some of us will make better choices in achieving this goal than others.
When I allow the bad choices of others to cause me to let my anger and outrage guide my decision making, then I have chosen an unwise path.
Let us say, for argument’s sake, that we are totally accurate in our assessment that someone is an asshole. What do we do in response to that? Do we treat them with disrespect and hatred? Do we belittle, deride, condemn, accuse, and judge them? Do we treat them with hatred and violence?
I remember the advice of a woman who supported me through a tough time I experienced as a pastor. She often told me, “Never let the assholes make an asshole out of you.” When I allow the bad choices of others to cause me to let my anger and outrage guide my decision making, then I have chosen an unwise path.
Knowing why someone acts in bad ways is complicated. Knowing how to deal with them is also complicated. But allowing anger rather than love to guide us is never the correct response.
Think about it.
You are loved. Peace.
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