Opposing Realities

As long as there will be humans, there will murderers, rapists and theives. As humans exist, so shall liars, bullies, and con artists. There will always be those among you who seek to enslave and disempower others at some level. There will always be those who seem to delight in the cruelty because it feels like power. And there will always be people who will gravitate to that power and even worship it. That is because so long as you believe yourself to be separate from God, there will be fear.

But as long as there will be humans, there will also be those who love. 

In your world, you are confronted with those who are acting out of fear so that you can learn how to love. If, as a society, you see atrocities around you, it is because you are being given an opportunity to learn how to love even more deeply, even more fully, even more unconditionally.

Can you love even the snake that would bite you? The snake that coils and hisses at you does so because it is afraid for its life. It is in fear. If it does indeed decide to strike you, that is because it is certain that it has no other choice. But you know that you do, don’t you? Do you not recognize the sight and sound of the hissing snake as an attempt to frighten you off, to cast you also into fear? For the snake believes that you fight fear with fear, aggression with aggression. Will you choose to stare the snake down, or even perhaps reach for its tail? Or, will you slowly back away and give it the space it is requesting?

The snake most likely will never learn that you are not a threat. It might never love you. But can you learn to love it anyway?

When you feel separate from God, you may see others as the snake sees you – a looming, scary monster. You may fear that others threaten your livelihood, your freedom, or even your very existence. You coil and hiss at them. You are blinded by fear, and being nearsighted, may not recognize them as your mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends. 

If they react to your coiling and hissing by hissing and coiling back, then you are just two terrified snakes in the road, coiling and hissing at each other. To resolve the standoff, one of you must choose to stop acting from a place of fear. Can that be you?

When family members hold drastically different views from you, it feels like a separation. Separation is fear. You may fear their judgment. You may fear a loss of love. You may fear a permanent loss of connection. And, in your fear, you may withdraw from them, or prepare for a fight. But what if there is nothing to fear? What if they are allowed to believe as they believe and you are allowed to believe as you do as well?

But, you may say, ‘what if what they believe is abhorrent to me?’ ‘What if I believe what they believe to be dangerous to humankind?’ To that we ask, ‘what if what you believe about their point of view is what they believe about your point of view?

So there you are, like two snakes in the road, each thinking the other is dangerous.

It is pointless to try and convince that snake that you are not a snake. It is equally pointless to try and convince yourself that what you are seeing is not a snake. But perhaps you can give each other the space to be each as you are. Even better, perhaps you can choose to love, yes, even the snake that would bite you. Perhaps then, you begin to have a wider vision and can see that what you see as a snake is just another human being recoiled in fear. Your work is not to get them to become unafraid; that is their work and theirs alone. But rather, your work is to love them anyway, as they are. Your work is to rise above the fear they may try to instill in you. Your work is to rise above your own fear of being misunderstood, judged, abandoned, or even attacked. Your work is to CHOOSE LOVE.

And is this not how you change the world, one human loving another human, one at a time.