Earlier this year, amid the din of political bickering happening, in this case, on another friend’s Facebook page, fellow Journeyer Melinda Hasting Wheatley (writer, poet, parent, educator) shared this beautiful statement. I believe it with all my heart, and wish to live it every day: 

I have this sense that we are all the same, all one. Poor and rich, haves and have-nots, criminals and saints, wives and adulterers, ignorant and intelligent, god-fearing and lovers of darkness.

There is nothing that makes me superior to you in character or deed or status or behavior or genetics or culture or gender or race or belief system. Nor you to me.

If I behave toward you as my brothers and sisters, fathers, mothers, friends, self, then my judgments of you ring hollow– for where I see your weakness in one area, you inevitably transcend me in another.

To eliminate the idea that I somehow have the experience and wisdom to judge you is what I strive to do, and I hope for you to do the same of me.

A fair, impartial judge could take a look at my life in its entirety and FAIRLY condemn me to hell for my vast character defects (I have so many). Yet, that same judge could raise me up as an example of courage and fortitude and beauty (I have these, too). In the end, my wholeness is inherently “good” and “evil”, light and dark, blending me to an awareness of God through my mistakes, allowing me to minister to others in my good choices.

Love, love.