Right and Wrong

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out who is right and who is wrong.  Whether it is the right candidate, football team, school, job, or house; we expend tremendous energy in making sure that we are right.  Sometimes because of the effort that we have put in to reach these conclusions we arrive at a dangerous fallacy; we determine that our conclusion is mutually exclusive to other possibilities.     

As we create our modern world of Truth and Error and truth and error are defined with capital letters it creates an atmosphere where contrary conclusions cannot coexist. Either I am right and you or wrong, or if you are right, I must be wrong.  Once those position lines are drawn the trajectory toward disagreement is set and the parties opportunity for resolution begins to disappear.  

Law and politics evoke very strong desires to demonstrate what is right and what is wrong. Even when people agree that criminal acts were committed there often continues to exist disagreement as to whether the person who committed those acts was evil or merely committed an error.  Those who know them personally call them ususally good.

In politics, issues like same-sex marriage create perceived needs to stand in different corners and declare that one is right and the other is wrong.  Those who abhor gay marriage as a fundamental evil will decry the practice and assert the position of loving the sinner but hating the sin.  Those who promote equal rights in marriage to include same-sex couples call out those others as hypocrites, closed-minded and wrong.  

These responses bring a sadness to my life but renew in me a desire to do more good.  Not all who read this are Christian, but I share with you this thought:

34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Though far from perfect in this regard but I share this.  I know people who do not live many principles of the religion that I practice.  Do I hate them or their actions?  No.  I live so that they may one day see my joy and want to emulate what I do.  I pray that God will bless them even more than he has blessed me. The joy of my belief is that it brings joy because I choose it, not because it is thrust upon me.  

Same-sex marriage is so rife with emotion-charged debate because marriage is a fundamental unit of our beliefs and our lives.  Fundamental change is hard. Fundamental change is almost never easy nor is it usually pretty.  

If done right, fundamental change can lead to more love, not less. 

Let us all omit the hate from the debate.  

Live with love. 

Serve rather than oppress.  

In love, solutions to the problems, real or contrived, will be realized.