We have a lot of news about sexual harassment and sexual predators, people – mostly well-known men – who are charged with misusing their positions of power or influence to harass others sexually.  Because it has been easier than usual to isolate these incidences and charge the people with these abuses, it has been very easy for many people to jump on the band-wagon to condemn and judge those who are singled-out.

The trouble is that the problem has a deeper core.  On the surface, we can easily imagine and see how these harassing incidences play out.  We can also understand how people can take advantage of others.  We have been doing this to each other for millennium after millennium.

But, in looking at this, I’m seeing a deeper issue and cause that is across the board – human related – rather than just being isolated incidences.  I’m seeing sexual harassment on the job as only a symptom of this deeper human-wide issue.

What I see is that the issue is not about sex and power.  It is about respect.  It is about whether we respect other people in other situations, in other circumstances of life, in other genders, other religions, other cultures, other races.  The question is put to us – do we respect others?

It’s easy to say, ‘well, respect has to be earned.’  No, it doesn’t.  No infant has ever been charged with ‘not deserving respect’ because they haven’t yet earned it.  No child has ever been labeled in school – “undeserving of anyone’s respect because they haven’t fulfilled anything deserving it”.  We don’t say at some point, ‘they’ve now grown up, and we can decide whether they’ve earned respect or not.’

As human beings, we don’t think about these things, but in the back of our minds, as family and friends of those infants and children, and without thinking, we hold some level of respect for them automatically.  That level is usually based on the amount of respect we generate in our own heart for human beings in general.

As human beings and spiritual beings, we are born into deserving of Love, of mercy, of kindness, etc., … and of respect.  But, across the board of all human existence, we can see where we fall extremely short on giving that respect, or love or kindness, etc. to others.

When we actively work to respect another person – consciously – we treat that person so much better.  We work to not harm them.  We work to be kind, generous and merciful to them.  We work to forgive them, to support them and to offer them as much of the best of ourselves whenever they need it.

When we actively don’t respect someone, it becomes so easy for us to demonstrate that lack or small amount of respect through abuse of all kinds, harassment, insults, condemnation, judgmental criticism and every other means to demean them and look down on them.  It becomes easy for us to charge them with “no longer deserving respect’.  When we choose to not respect, it becomes easy to mistreat and abuse them.  When we have little or no respect for another person or group of people, it becomes easier for us to enslave and kill them.  (When we have little or no respect for others, subconsciously, we can have little or no respect for our self.)

We usually have in our individual minds and hearts that measuring stick which we hold up to them and say, ‘they don’t deserve respect because…’.  The reasons are vast and numerous.  They don’t deserve respect because of . . . their gender, their race, their religion, their lack of religion, their social status, their occupation, their age, their spiritual beliefs, their country of origin, their education, their location, their behaviors, their lack of behaviors, their affiliations, their past, their present, their future, their X, their Y, their Z and on and on.

Look across the board to all humans and look for some person or group who is giving respect to every human on the planet.  Not someone who is “saying” I give respect, but rather someone who is giving that respect without being asked.  Look far and wide, because when we are honest with ourselves, and respecting what honesty really is – and the level of honesty within ourselves – we will find all of ourselves wanting and failing at respecting all others.  Many women (and men) have been on the receiving end of sexual harassment. All human beings have been on the receiving end of being shown little or no respect.  All human beings have also been on the giving end of ‘little or no respect’ towards another individual or a group (and ourselves.)

For myself, I can think of only 1 man who, in His heart, mind, and soul respected each and every human alive – albeit all life.  And while He may have chastised and warned people against those who said one thing and did another, when it came to His end, He recognized the respect all deserve as children of God in His words of equality and humility -“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  In essence, saying “Father, they are deserving of forgiveness.  They are deserving of mercy.  They are deserving of the Love You have for them – even that Love through Me.  They are deserving of consideration, of patience, of encouragement, of all You have to give, … and they are deserving of respect… even though they don’t know it or take it on for themselves to bestow it to others.”  He saw then, and He sees today, all of us as His equals deserving all that God gave Him and all God has to give.

As souls, we are innately born into existence with respect from the Father/Mother God.  As souls, we recognize the reality of each of us having our own parcel of the Godhead within our own existence and spirit.  We are all sparks of the Infinite Consciousness of God, and from this Infinite Consciousness of God comes respect as well as the other Spirit Qualities of Love, Compassion, Mercy and others.  These qualities reside within us waiting for us to express them outwardly towards others.  By the very nature of our existence, we are children of God and innately are already deserving of respect, and called to give respect (as well as deserving of love, kindness, mercy, etc. – then called to give love, kindness, mercy, etc) by our very existence.  Yet, we don’t always automatically receive them from others or give them to others.

Every effort we make to change our own ‘lack of respect’ into ‘respecting’ moves us one step closer to creating a better world for all people.  It could help if we remember His words, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”, and take them on for ourselves to bring into the world towards others and to ourselves.  In a world one day filled to the brim with our respect for one another, (and other qualities), then we will have Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards All Men and Women (and all life).

*******

” ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ (John 8:7) applies to how we treat our self, also.”  (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1997-2017, Jodie Senkyrik)

“Jesus never lied when he spoke. Yet, sometimes we still find it hard to believe him… and sometimes, we absolutely don’t.”  (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1997-2017, Jodie Senkyrik)

“Disappointment in others occurs when there is a small amount of our assistance for them to reach a large amount of our expectations.”  (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 1997-2017, Jodie Senkyrik)

“There will never be a day that we can stop hatred and violence in the world by opposing it using hatred and violence.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2016, Jodie Senkyrik)