Issues that divide us

The people in these United States are practically divided by their personal issues of politics, race, gender, age, religion, work, education, and bank account that tend to establish their personal culture for their behavior. . Individuals experience various levels of “abuse” from others in their communities, neighborhoods, work places, schools, home, and public places that they expect the laws of this nation to protect them from. When these laws and their enforcement by various legal authorities fails to protect them from being “abused”, they live each day with an undercurrent of anger and frustration from this persistent culture of personal behavior and “abuse” that they face every day.

Laws are limited

The passage of new laws and even the enforcement of existing laws often doesn’t seem to relieve these feelings of being “abused” and frustrated, because even when their abuser are brought to some level of judgment for their behavior, it is not practically perfect or complete or enduring in its benefits, because the underlying personal quality still remains in the life of the individual who can’t change his or her race or gender, and the changes that he or she makes in the other issues don’t seem to make any practical difference in the personal level of “abuse” that he or she experiences every day. Laws and protests cannot force individuals to love, to respect, and to be kind and considerate of others who are “different” from them. The best benefits of law are to define what is illegal behavior, but they can’t do anything against abusive attitudes and even speech, like name calling which is a very popular strategy for dealing with personal feelings of anger and frustration that come from living in such a divided, abusive, and unjust culture.

Only love can heal our abusive culture

Jesus states a basic law that we should “love our neighbors as we love ourselves”. The acceptance of this law of behavior and attitudes in our daily lives would go a long way in healing our culture of personal abuse in this nation, but such love in our personal relationships and attitudes cannot be legally established. It can only be established by the sacrifice of our selfish desires and prideful attitudes. It can be taught in our churches, but it has to be modeled by our parents who are initial and primary teachers for the formation of loving character in the culture of our personal lives. Love cannot be required in others. It can only be implemented and demonstrated by one’s own choices. Let’s love our neighbors and see our culture become healed. Let’s talk about this.