Monday, August 12, 2013

Understanding Sacrifices that Seem Strange to Us

All of us - every single one of us - sacrifices in some way that seems ludicrous and laughable to someone else. That is extremely important to remember. 

If I don't believe something is important, it isn't important in any practical way for me - no matter how passionately someone else believes it.

If I do believe it is important, it is important for me - no matter how passionately someone else disagrees.

If I don't believe it is important, I can choose to mock it and belittle it - or I can choose to disagree and honor the effort to live according to the dictates of the other person's own conscience.

I'm much more interested "spiritually" in how I respond to what I consider to be absurd than in the one engaged in the absurd - although I am very interested in the absurd on a purely intellectual level.

Again, I fight the urge to view others and what I see as their "weird" beliefs in a way that is inconsistent with how I want others to view me and what they see as my own "weird" beliefs. That's really, really important to me personally - actually one of my most fundamental efforts.

Motes and beams and kettles and pots and all that jazz.

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