Porthole

Seeing unity or disunity

My comment to the "Question of the Day!" : "Are there universal characteristics of belief systems that are common across all cultures? What are they and how can they bring us together?"

I think some folks are 1. overthinking and 2. culturally blind.

To wit, many forms of Christianity are exclusive. If you were brought up in that my-team versus your-team tribal midset you may have difficulty wrapping the mind around a different way of looking at things.

Culture is wonderful in its diversity of human expression. Sure, it leads to misunderstandings but those can be overcome by love, kindness and heart-to-heart 'conversation' (verbal or non-verbal).

Not all cultures think of God in an anthropomorphic way and therefore limited to human form and frailties. If you google "face of God" only the Christian literal anthropomorphic concept comes up... don't be deceived in thinking it's true or shared by others.

If you look at someone and see the face of God, you won't hate them. Very simple. And if you come from believing that God is One and all creation flows from that Oneness than seeing Humanity as One isn't all that difficult.

However, if one sees how 'religions' are warped by time and place, then accepting that they all strive to follow a path to God may be diificult. And one only sees difficulty when looking down at the path then looking up; but the perspective from On High is unifying.

Further thoughts:

If you start from disunity trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff ... good luck. If you start from unity than you delight in the diversity and have less need to divide people into groups. People aren't a wheat field to be harvested, the best to be put on pedestals and praised, the rest discarded. If God so wills... but people aren't 'god', except in their own heads.

I attest to the unity I see around me not the delusion that seeks to divide us.

"Blogging Circle of Friends " 

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly." — Sam Keen

A lot of people get hung up with the imperfections. Are you one ? What's the best way to handle imperfection? Address it or ignore it.

The only person that's perfect is a perfect asshole. Which is a crude way of stating it. I've met a few radiant people in my lifetime. I sincerely doubt that they considered themselves to be perfect!

It gets to a point I try to make in the first part of this post. See the face of God in everyone and you will love them regardless of their imperfections.

(This helps when reviewing or critiquing an awful piece of prose or poetry. Love that writer while slicing and dicing what they wrote. )

In my personal life I've felt loved and have loved. But the concept of 'perfect people' just gets in the way of unconditional love.

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