liberal

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My Letter to a Friend

You once mentioned that I am somewhat alone in holding the views and positions that I do in life. You once mentioned that I’m labeled a liberal, even though I don’t think of myself as fitting under a stereotype, yet others think of me that way. But, I’m not really alone and so, I will answer the unasked question of why I feel and think, and act, as I do.

My answer is this.

….Because I see how people are treated in the world. I’ve seen people of all walks of life – normal people, people who struggle to get by, struggle to eat, struggle to find work, struggle to stay alive, struggle against despair, and struggle to not commit suicide, because they’re buried by unending hardships of life, and drowning from going so long with the lack of any hope. This is happening to more and more people in this time and place. I see people who through whatever circumstances – get bent and broken, hurt, harmed and killed. I witness people who oppose others living their own life differently, and ask myself, why don’t they have the right to try to live their life, and live it as best they can.

My answer is this.

….I have the right to care about other people if I so choose to. I have the right to help another person if I want to help them. I have the right to feel what I feel about helping. I have the right to choose to help when and who I can help, and especially when I know someone absolutely needs help.

I know what suffering and pain is. We all know what it is. We see it in our own life, and sometimes we see it in others’ lives. I have the right to muster whatever effort I can to help end whatever suffering may be possible, with me only being one person…. who could join with another one person…. who could join with another one person….

My answer is this.

…When someone’s belief is “Those people are evil.” I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and I believe, “No, they’re not evil just because you name-call them that.” When someone’s opinion and belief is, “Those people deserve to suffer.” I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and then believe, “No, they don’t just because you say they deserve to suffer.”

When someone believes the Internet rumors, or the powerful people’s name-calling, the Internet speculation, the claims of those on TV, and “he said it, therefore it’s true”, I have the right to believe that the rumors, the name-calling, opinions, speculation, claims and “HE SAID IT THEREFORE IT MUST BE TRUE” are only that – opinions and beliefs, which just as often are proven not true as they’re presented, and yet still cause pain, suffering and harm to people. I have the right to say, “I disagree”, and then oppose the words, and demand proof. And I’ve witnessed that the proof, many times, never shows up.

When someone says their beliefs about others are Facts, I have the right to say “I believe they are not FACTS, because you don’t prove them, while there can be opposing FACTS which have been proven.”

I have had experiences being the target of prejudice, of disrespect, of hatred, of harm, of rumor, name-calling, claims, and “he said it, therefore it’s true.” I’ve been the recipient of religious people “bearing false witness” against me for whatever reasons they have. I’ve been targeted and harmed from it.

All of these actions of mankind are chosen actions. No one is a programmed computer who has no freewill. When human beings choose to target someone, humans do it – very many times – because it is a belief, and we humans hold within our hearts and minds the willingness to target and harm another human being. In our world now, with the choosing of impatience and animosity, the greatest majority of targeting and attacking is ONLY based on beliefs and attitudes, and not actual proven FACTS.

My answer is this.

…I choose to work hard to help prevent and oppose threats and bullying. I choose to add effort to helping people who want the right to live their life as best they can. I choose to work hard at helping to prevent and oppose prejudice, and rumor and the harm that comes from “somebody said it somewhere, therefore it’s true” or “The President said it, therefore I believe it.”

And each time someone says, I’m a fool or says I’m stupid or I’m an idiot, to be this way, with insults and raging at me, I will continue to work to say, “That’s only your opinion, and I disagree with it, but you have the right to choose what thoughts live within your own mind, your own heart, and within your own soul.”

And so do I.

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The Good Within the Bad; the Bad Within the Good

The Edgar Cayce Readings tell us “There is good in the worst of us. There is bad in the best of us.” Who else may have said this? Martin Luther King, Robert Lewis Stephenson, Bishop Fulton Sheen, Abraham Lincoln, Thornton Wilder, Carl Jung, and many more.  It is consistent throughout time and recognized for its forthright honesty about we human beings.

Each of these sources are talking about human beings. They are reminding us that everyone has both the light and dark within us, both selfishness and unselfishness within us, both the light and the shadow, both the left and the right, the forward and the backward, the up and the down, etc within us. (And as I have said, “There is a liberal within the consciousness of every conservative, and a conservative within the consciousness of every liberal.”  “There is a Republican within every Democrat and a Democrat within every Republican.”)  And if we’ve come across this saying and taken it to heart, we’ve pretty much only considered it relevant to human beings.

But, it can be considered in other ways, too. For example – the choices we make as human beings.

When we make choices of how to proceed, we weigh both the good and the bad.  When we finally make the decision/choice, neither the good nor the bad disappear or are dissolved from existence.  Neither are both the good and the bad turned into both good or both bad.

There is no choice that is made that is 100% “good”, and no choice that is 100% “bad”.  (Notice the quotation marks.)  This is because we are individuals deciding only for ourselves (or our group) as to what is a good decision and what is a bad decision.  What is a good decision for our self, can absolutely be a bad decision for someone else.  That which can bring good results for our self from our choices can absolutely bring bad results for others.  In other words, the circumstances of our own personal choices and decisions are good for some people in our lives and bad for other people in our lives.

This is the world we so often see when we look around on this planet.  We many times see everything in our lives and in this world as black and white, good or bad, right or wrong, but rarely ever as both, or the gray area in between.  Oh, sure, we know life is a mixture of gray areas.  But, when push comes to shove, we back ourselves and others into the corners of black/white.

Right now, you may think I’m writing about race issues, but I’m not.  However, since you’re right and I’m wrong, then I must be writing about race issues.  Except that I’m writing about that which is within the one individual, so this must mean that I’m writing about the issue that within every white person is a black person, and within every black person is a white person (especially if we see the other person as a stereotype, as well as if we see the other person as a cosmos unto themselves.)

Or I’m writing about all of the above – how we see the world – and how we aren’t yet seeing our self.

In our political arenas, in general, many of us are seeing things as black and white, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, as well as vice versa.  Therein lies our problem, that if we only see these factors, we’re only choosing to see the black/white side of our choices.  And this carries over into our everyday lives – with our relationships, with our attitudes, and with our religious/spiritual beliefs – and whether we choose violence or nonviolence, abuse on not, insults or not, disrespect or not, and compassion or not, patience or not, kindness or not – eventually with whether we choose to Love God above all else, and Love our neighbor as ourselves…. or not.

Yet, it is still possible to step back from black/white, right/left, them/us thinking, feeling, and responding.

We all value different things in life.  We come by these values through our experiences and learning.  We find what we like and dislike – what we hold more important – through living life.  Since everyone lives a different life than everyone else, we’re going to learn, experience and come to value different things in these different lives.

With our values, we can sometimes come to believe that our own values are the only values worth …. valuing.  Without realizing it, we are then saying our experiences are the only experiences one can gain from – our learning is the only education worth learning.

Of course, we would never consciously acknowledge this lopsided thinking, but when we choose black/white thinking, like we generally are tending to do right now in our world, this is what we are inferring.  Our views are the right views, our values are the real values, our education is the correct education, our values are the only values worth having.

In actuality, for the most part, none of us are this 2 dimensional in our thinking.  We do have room in our paradigm for people who value different experiences and learning.  But, ultimately, we’ve taken up the habit of judging others because of the reason that they have different thoughts, beliefs, and values.

God alone knows what all is in a person’s heart – that which we think, which we fully believe and that which we value.  We human beings don’t, even during those times that we solidly think we do.  But, we are almost automatic in our judgement of another person for what we think, believe and value.  In addition, we can compare that which we individually value to what God values, and the one thing that’s true in this comparison is how monumentally we fall short compared to what God values.

It is in the judging that we get off track.  It is in the criticism of others’ differences that we start missing the greater learning.  It is in the diminishing of others’ experiences and of what others have learned through living life.  It is in not recognizing that others value different things in life based upon their soul’s different journey.  This shortcoming becomes a form of disrespect of the soul that God created, and the circumstances in which the soul is experiencing human life with all that comes with their life.

In the judging, we are, once again, taking a bite of the apple from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.  We are, once again, moving ourselves out of the garden, within which we have been meant to be.  In the judging, we are also judging ourselves and that part of our self of which we are yet unconscious – the yin within our yang, and our yang within our yin – or possibly in this case – our liberal self within our conservative self and our conservative self within our liberal self… and on and on.

Sure, we can always choose to hold onto our black/white thinking – our right vs. left thinking – for an eternity if we so choose, and an eternity after that, and another eternity after that.  Or we can begin to let go of our judgement of others since they have come to learn to value different parts of life than we have.  We can begin to let go of our judgement of others who hold different things in life to be important.  We can let go of our judgement, in effect, letting go of thinking that our life path is God’s life path for all human beings which would thus “teach all humans the same values and same beliefs” as our self.

It is in letting go of our judging others (and everything about them) that we can begin putting the apple back on the tree.  It is this that helps us to step out of the duality of the current world – the conflict and discord of the current world.

Oh, sure, there is still learning from each other and challenging each others’ beliefs that we still go through and experience.  Good thing, too, for what would life be like if no belief or thought were ever challenged – ever?

Letting go of judgement doesn’t mean there are no consequences, for who among us thinks God would no longer have karma be alive and well.  The principles of karma, or as I call it, “soul activity echoes”, would simply happen without judgement – AS IT DOES NOW without our being aware of this fact.

It is judgement which has created duality.  It is letting go of judgement that brings unity and oneness back for us to experience, and perhaps in turn, value, and perhaps value more so than so many other things in life – to the point that we practice letting go of judging regularly – to the point that we find our way back to caring for the people who used to be in our life and who we cared about before – and still care about except for the fact that they think differently and believe differently.

And except for the fact that when digging deep down, it turns out that we find that we value the same or similar things as people who we care about – like love, kindness, compassion – like forgiveness and mercy – and like letting go of judgement for where they are at in their life, heart and mind, and the feeling of oneness and unity with which letting go of judging them then brings us to experience.

God bless us, everyone.

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“Even though we judge differently, (judging things to be good or bad), things are happening perfectly and without judgement for us and for our learning and growth.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2019, Jodie Senkyrik)

“Forgiving one’s enemy changes one’s enemy. Not changed in front of our eyes, but in front of time’s eyes, which is where we were changed, also, when we were forgiven.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2017, Jodie Senkyrik)

“It is best that we don’t believe everything we hear about someone. It is also best that we don’t believe everything we say about someone.”  (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2006-2017, Jodie Senkyrik)

“God does not approach us with judgement or criticism in His/Her heart, but rather patience, understanding, kindness and love.” (The Rainbow Cards, ©, 2006-2017, Jodie Senkyrik)