Love People
Sometimes I surf the internet. One picture will motivate me to visit a site next thing I know it is midnight. I have been noticing over the past decades there are a lot of really gorgeous children being born. Is it the grandmother in me? Perhaps, but I see these little happy folks and I cannot help but smile. They are the best of humanity, they are what we all are until life and cynicism ruins us. They look at a flower and it’s color makes them happy. They don’t run from or smash it because of it’s particular shade they adore and admire it just as it is. We adults in turn have nothing but praises for the babies, “aren’t you the prettiest, sweetest, smartest, most talented little one we have ever seen. And we don’t care who you belong to.
Fast forward about 15 years, those beautiful wonder-filled beings are now starting to make decisions and voice their opinions. They are now met with, “You don’t know what you are talking about, Why don’t you behave better, What are you listening to and What is that you are wearing?” They go from the Apples of Society’s Eye to Menaces to Society in less than two short decades. All the while their main critics forgetting they once occupied that very same place in life. The reason being no one wants to stay in that place of confusion, indecision, and turmoil. We wonder what is wrong with our children as they begin to mature. We love them always, but are challenged to like them. I recall a woman I saw many years ago at the mall in Alpharetta;she was neat and tidy, dressed in a suit, had corporate America written all over her. She was carrying a Louis Vutton purse and every hair was in place. As she approached the counter in the young men’s department at Rich’s(region department store now out of business) this surly, thin, greasy haired young man dressed in goth-type clothing came to and stood next to her. I expected her to jump out of her skin because he was so far away from who she was, but after a moment you knew this was not just someone she knew, this was her child. The were a curious pair walking out of the store. I shook my head and thought, “You never know..”
These two made me think of how we judge and make decisions about OUR young people. We have issues with our own children, so it is hard to imagine us being any more tolerant of someone elses’ and guess what, we aren’t. Do any of you recall that time in your life? The time when your music basically made your parents or most any adult grimace at the very least. The time when self discovery was coupled with fear and insecurity. The time when your excuse of being young and not responsible was fading into, ” It is your fault, You know better.” The thing that MUST be taken into consideration here is, it was a time of transitions.
Time marches forward some more. Now we have an adult he may be in our workplace being difficult or perhaps she has gotten into trouble and landed herself in jail. The significant thing here in both of these cases is; once these throwaways, these social irritants, were adorable sweet faced babies that we all loved to love.
Too bad we don’t get to transform ourselves from beautiful-adorable baby to upstanding-citizen adult. However, that is not our reality. We are human and we are flawed. Your flaws look a lot more serious than mine because I am judging, but then I must consider that door swings both ways that I am also on the receiving end of judgment. My son often speaks of loving without condition; from a Christian point of view, this is a difficult goal but at least it is a goal that is presented to us on a weekly basis( although it should be a constant basis). Perhaps if we ALL task ourselves with this loving one another without condition on a regular-targeted basis, we could get closer to the goal as well. As human beings if we aren’t challenged we vegetate and die, so it is with ideas and concepts. Take the challenge and make your contribution towards solving the problem of just Loving People without condition and stipulations. “Shoot for the moon” here, people “because if you miss you will still land among the stars…”
hafacenturyncounting 