Against the Odds ~

The young seeker asks “Why are we here?” almost before he or she is in school. Who are we, what are we here for, what is the reason behind everything we see? Pretty heavy duty questions to be asking, and most of the time there are no quality answers to give for such questions.

I feel I have stumbled on the answer to that one, however. It’s not an answer I particularly like, but it is an answer that makes sense even out of the most horrid circumstances that can exist on this planet. I believe that we are here to learn, against all odds, to love. I know, it sounds too simple, but then, remember Occam’s razor; and it would seem to fit, wouldn’t it? We humans have found that our species can be guilty of some pretty horrible and nasty things, many of which have been committed against each other. Truth is, many of those horrors make it pretty difficult to love the perpetrator.  And then there’s that “platitude” love the person, not the crime. Well, yes, but the person is usually so darned intimately attached to the crime, how do you do that?

I am still learning this one, and I will not try to tell you that I can love all the time. There are crimes that just beg for an expedient end to the perpetrator, I will not argue the logic of that. I am simply stating that I believe that we as a species need to learn to love, deeply, truly, completely, and against all odds.

It was Peter who told us that love covers a multitude of sins, see lPeter 4:8. I am not sure he understood the entire ramifications of that statement, though he very well might have. If each of us learns to carry within our hearts that deep compassion for all souls, the compassion asked of us by the Master, the injuries will quietly stop that create many of the “monsters” that come from abusive environments. In that level of compassion we will also learn how to treat the diseases of the mind that leave a soul broken and unable to account for their own actions.

It is only as we learn this depth of love that things like modern slavery, very much an existing plague, can be stopped. (see, Free the Slaves) I cannot defend the perpetrators of all of the crimes against humanity that occur every day in our frightening world, I can only say that until we learn to love at a deep level, all the time, all of us, we will still see this level of degradation in our society.